


Angles Thus and So

by copperbadge



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Light Bondage, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-03
Updated: 2008-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:10:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The city belongs to Sheppard and McKay, and the boys belong to Elizabeth -- especially Rodney.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It starts the day after the storm, or anyway a few hours after the storm, when everyone's diurnal cycle has been thrown off by the lingering clouded darkness at any rate.

Evacuees are returning, maintenance is beginning, and when Elizabeth finally comes down off her adrenaline high she decides to throw in the towel on being Boss Of Atlantis for a while and let everyone get on with their jobs. Which is how she has the time to notice that McKay's still in the gateroom, working furiously on a laptop, and he has a bandage wrapped around the _outside of his jacket_. She recalls seeing this earlier, but she was thinking of other things and her eyes just slid away from it.

"McKay," she says.

"Working," he grunts.

"I need to -- "

"Genius at work!" he snarls, without looking up from the laptop or, indeed, stopping typing. It's one of his most disturbing traits, that he can hold entire conversations and actually absorb them at the same time his fingers are constantly moving. Like the programming is some autopilot subroutine. Or maybe the listening is. Or maybe he isn't typing anything meaningful and he just knows that it messes with peoples' minds; that's not something she'd put past him.

"Just give me until the endline of this code. Trying to ensure we aren't all gassed in our sleep by the Ancients, who built in some pretty ruthless failsafes against sinkage," he continues.

She waits patiently rather than fight it out, and it's only forty seconds before he clicks one last time and leans back.

"Now, what?" he asks.

She touches his arm and he jerks it back, confused defiance on his face.

"You need to get that looked at."

"Carson's busy," he replies.

"Well, you could wait for infection and gangrene to set in," she says, and he gets a little white around the lips. McKay's levers are glaringly obvious.

He lets her lead him to the medical bay, and when it proves that Carson really is too busy to have a look at what is "probably just a scratch, you big baby" (she hasn't told him how McKay got the wound, McKay's warning fingers tight around her wrist) she seats him in an empty chair and herself across from him so that their knees touch, a tray of instruments nearby.

He hisses when she unwinds the last layer of bandage and, like most of McKay's quick-and-dirty fixes, it's a clean tight binding over a messy, jagged wound. He didn't seem to have any concern for the physicality of it, just that the gore was covered in bandage. Sometimes it's easier not to lift the shredded corners and survey the actual damage, she supposes.

The jacket and shirt underneath it are caked to the wound, and she slits his sleeves from wrist to elbow before he even notices she has the scissors in her hand.

"Hey! That's my shirt!"

"This," she says, "is your _arm_. Would you like to go through life one-handed, Rodney?"

He sets his jaw and stares at her. "No."

"All right," she says, and begins dabbing at the wound with a gauze pad soaked in alcohol. He doesn't hiss anymore, just closes his eyes. Which is good, because then he doesn't see the needle with the local anaesthetic in it until it's in his arm and the plunger is shot.

"You _jabbed_ me!"

"You need stitches," she retorts, setting his arm on the tray. "Sit. Stay."

"Oh very nice!" he calls after her, but she's already looking for the surgical stitch kit. When she returns with it, he eyeballs her. "Are you trained for this?"

"Relax. I've done it before in the field. Close your eyes again."

"What, so I can't watch you embroider your name on my arm?"

She rolls her eyes slightly, but since he's obeying anyway she doesn't push it.

As she stitches she notices that he's sitting oddly in the chair, almost on the edge, and it can't be comfortable. She thinks about Kolya sliding the knife into the flesh of his arm, so close to the tendons that control movement in the fingers. She thinks about Kolya pressing him up against the rails over the roiling ocean, McKay's whole body bowed backwards.

She wraps the bare arm in fresh gauze when she's finished, and only then does he open his eyes.

"I need to check something," she says, holding the scissors up questioningly. He doesn't nod, but he doesn't react either when she circles him and slides the blades from the waistband of his jacket to the nape of his neck, parting the fabric cautiously. Two parallel lines, vivid purple, one just below his shoulderblades and one a few inches below that. They're uneven across his broad back, the higher one blossoming into a bright knot of colour along his scapula.

She shoves the fabric further and he shrugs out of it, pulling the shredded sleeve off his shredded arm and easing the other sleeve down over his wrist. His head is bowed, now, but his face is still a mixture of misery and defiance.

"I'll get you a shirt," she says, digging one out of the storage closet near the infirmary. He's standing when she returns and he lets her help him get his arms in the sleeves and the zip done up. She's cuffing one sleeve over the bandage so that it won't rub the tape off when he sways forward and kisses her.

***

This is not how Rodney remembers it.

In his version, and we're talking Rodney and Elizabeth here so it could very well go either way, she pulls him off his coding when he was doing fine, hauls him down to the medical bay, puts him through a voodoo ritual involving stinging alcohol and needles and _stitches in his skin_ , and then strips him with a pair of scissors.

(It's true this version is a lot funnier, at least the bits he tells. That family-friendly edited-cut ends with her giving him a shirt and then locking him out of the computers for four hours so he has to sleep.)

He's shivering and mortified and every part of his body hurts when she returns with a shirt and makes a total screwup of helping him on with it. When it's finally on, as if to make apology for him getting knifed and almost thrown into the ocean, she gives him a fond look and leans up and kisses him.

She tastes like sea-water; they probably both do, which on Earth would be less pleasant, what with the toxins and god-knows-what floating all over the place. This is Atlantean seawater, salty, clean, untainted, and he takes a moment to lick it off her lips, to offer his in return. When she pulls back she looks surprised at herself, or maybe at him, or something, he can't really parse every time Elizabeth looks surprised or he'd never get any work done.

"You should go to bed," she says and, in an awe-strikingly inspired moment that he attributes to continued exposure to John Sheppard, Rodney manages to be cool about all this.

"We should go to bed," he replies.

***

Snapshot:

Rumpled bedsheets in low light, not even much moonlight yet because the storm surge has left dirty clumps of cloud-cover in its wake. The furniture is not much more than shape in the darkness, thin highlights around the edges. Two pairs of boots, both neatly lined up by the door, streaked with pale saline residue where they've been soaked in salt-water and are still drying. Many more clothes strewn across the floor: a blue science-section shirt, an SGC jacket and red command shirt, two pairs of standard-issue trousers, underclothes, a thigh-holster.

What light exists slides across a man's back, artificial shadows thrown where the bruises are graining up. The curve of his spine up, muscles leading to his arm crooked across a woman's body, his head resting on her shoulder, his hand behind her neck. Her face tilted away, restful in sleep, cheek pillowed on his wrist. No fear, no guilt, no unhappiness; just sleep, entangled in each other, comfort where comfort can be found.

Rain rattling gently on the glass, streaking downwards.

***

And, somewhere in the city, John Sheppard wondering where the fuck the leader of Atlantis has gotten to, and what Beckett gave McKay to conk him out so hard he doesn't answer his radio, even though Beckett swears up and down he didn't give him anything. And anyway John doesn't wonder too hard, because he has bigger problems and Elizabeth tends to get in the way a lot.

***

Of course _after_ the gorgeous moonlit cuddling, then there's anxiety, and weirdly enough it's all on her side.

Rodney's aware that he's been muttering for a couple of minutes before consciousness hits, because someone is beating him on the shoulder with something round and pointy. It turns out this is someone's fist, trying to wake him up.

"Baaah?" he asks, blinking.

"McKay!"

"Yes, what, I can fix it," he slurs, because if someone's calling his name that means something is broken.

"What?" asks Elizabeth Weir, who is kind of close and kind of naked. Oh right. Sex.

"What?" he asks back.

"What did we do?" she demands.

"Umm." He processes this. "We had sex. Excellent sex. Are you okay?"

"Oh, god," she flops back on the bed, her face in profile from where he's lying on his side. "We did."

"Well, clearly _some_ of us thought it was excellent," he sighs, but it's hard to have his feelings hurt, because the sex was awesome and it was sex, which has been a distinct lack in Rodney McKay's life as of late.

"No, Rodney, I didn't mean..." she trails off. "This is just -- the situation is bad. Not the sex." And then she narrows her eyes at him. "You're gloating. I just committed adultery with my second in command, and you're gloating."

"Yeah," he says, realising that he is.

"McKay!"

"What? Jesus, it's not like we killed anyone," he replies. "I'm going to enjoy my gloating. I'm very good at that. Stop freaking out."

"I am not -- " she huffs, but he rolls his eyes which oddly enough silences her.

"You are freaking out. Which is totally unnecessary, because it's not like we even like each other most of the time, so obviously there's nothing intimately emotional about all this and you're _fine_ , okay? So I'm going to lie here and gloat for five minutes, you can keep count, and then we'll get dressed and we can pretend for the rest of time that this never happened."

Her look of immense relief is one that he's often encountered before, though admittedly rarely in bed. It's amazing how a little frank logic can ease a person's mind sometimes, and if there's one thing he's good at (there's way more than one) it's frank logic.

He will try not to take it personally that she's relieved they never have to talk about the amazing sex they had ever again. She turns to look at him, to give him a real and grateful smile.

Then he has a brilliant thought (this is not uncommon).

"Or," he says, slowly, "considering we're going to be pretending this never happened for the rest of time, we could do it again."

"Okay," she agrees, a little too quickly, and starts to shove him on his back and oh holy shit ow.

"No! Stop sitting on me, stop it, stop it!" he cries, pushing her away and sitting up as fire burns across the bruises on his back.

"Sorry!"

"Ow, my god, Atlantis is going to kill me," he gasps. "I'll be bruised to death."

"I'm sorry," she mutters, drawing the sheets up as if she's going to get off the bed. He touches her arm, stops her.

"Just, you know," he says. "Don't shove. Here, come here."

He pulls her back, startled at how light she is, pulls her across his body.

"We can do this," he says, only it sounds more like we have to do this now please. "I have several advanced degrees in what essentially boils down to how things fit together. Trust me."

She bursts out laughing and rests her forehead on his shoulder, and he pulls her close against him, her thighs on either side of his hips. He can't lean back and he's going to cramp if he stays like this, so he tightens his arms around her and lets her take some of the weight. And she leans back and oh -- that's good. Yes.

"Condom," she mutters, trying to remember if McKay took more than one from the open supply drawer when they left the infirmary.

"I try not to live in hope," he informs her drily, and she groans and bangs her fists on his shoulders ruefully. "Come on, Elizabeth. We all had screenings when we were prepping for the mission. Unless you make a habit of this kind of thing -- "

"What kind of woman do you think I am?"

"Almost unbearably hot," he replies. "My point being, I know I haven't had sex with anyone since we got here, which, couldn't really be less happy about that, and assuming you haven't, and you can do _basic math_..."

"Fine," she mutters, and he lets go of her long enough to cup one of her really very nice breasts, thumb brushing across the nipple. "Oh -- fine -- "

"Better," he murmurs, and then she's hitching her hips and well, who needs foreplay anyway.

Later, they pretend it never happened, until the next time everyone almost dies.

***

There are four stages of sleep, and REM is the second stage, but you can only get there by dropping into stage four and then coming back up to stage two. Generally this takes a while, but sleep-dep bypasses the complications and goes straight to the hallucinations.

A minute ago he was sitting on the ledge of the chair-platform taking a thirty-second break while he tries to get it operational because two Wraith hive-ships are coming to take Atlantis. He's never had a sex dream while sitting up before, or while facing imminent death before, but as he drifts and his head tips forward he can feel someone smoothing their hands over his shoulders, gripping his arms, the adrenaline-endorphine rush of being touched by another person.

Eyes-closed he doesn't know who it is, though he is aware enough that he's still on Atlantis to narrow it down to one of four or five people who feature regularly in his dreams -- Elizabeth, John, Radek, Sam Carter, that cute biologist he doesn't know the name of.

(Consciously he always disclaims Radek as a fluke because he often spends twenty hours a day with him. The others all make rational sense given their 1. amazing good looks or 2. past history of awesome sex with him.)

"This is Weir," someone says in his ear. Oh, okay, it's Elizabeth. That's nice. In the hyper-collapsed way that dreams bend time, he gets a nice kiss and a hand curling around his cock before he hears the rest -- "I've got the prototypes."

He's immediately awake. The prototypes. The nuclear warheads, those prototypes.

"Prototypes, right," he mutters, and grunts as standing makes his trousers constrict around his erection.

No time now; it'll fade off as soon as he gets to work.

Nice while it lasted.

***

Sleep is something to savour when you're this tired, and Rodney learned that during his orals for his first Master's. Contrary to popular belief, graduate studies are not that difficult when you are focused, when you love your work, and when you could give a goddamn about social lives and your VCR has a timer on it. The first time he was really ever afraid was during his orals, when the exam was so vigorous and scrutinising that he really was worried they would bounce him from the program. He'd got over it in time for the next one, but during that first one he didn't sleep much, and that was when he learned to enjoy it.

He's curled up in his bed, the blanket is snug and warm, and each vertebra slowly pops, easing his hips, the tension to his legs. His feet tangle up in the sheet, pulling it closer, protective, like the shield over the city, like the walls of his quarters. His jaw eases, and the throbbing behind his temples ebbs. This is it -- the instant just before unconsciousness, stretching out to infinity, warm and painless, when everything has gone away.

He wakes flailing, uncertain who or where he is, mouth dry, hair matted. After a second it returns -- Rodney McKay, his quarters in Atlantis, four days with little or no sleep -- oh god, did he really hop himself up on stimulants and then rewire a nuclear warhead?

He stumbles into the shower and opens his mouth to catch the water, which is gross but he doesn't care because it washes the grit and soreness down his throat, leaving clear cool wet behind. He probably has a briefing; his watch says it's nearly six o'clock and the light through the windows confirms it, so he dresses and laces up his boots and grabs his tablet on the way to the door, and when the door opens two enormous men with guns are standing there.

"Holy Jesus -- " he flails backwards, falling, and one of the man grabs him by the arm, pulling him upright. "Oh god, what did I do?"

The men exchange looks.

"Glad to see you awake, Dr. McKay," one of them says, releasing him.

"Am I under arrest?"

"No sir. Security detail," the man says. "Major Sheppard's orders." The other soldier is already radioing Sheppard that Dr. McKay is awake. "To prevent anyone disturbing you."

"THIS is disturbing me!"

"Yes, sir. We'll be on our way. Major Sheppard and Dr. Weir are requesting you in the mess hall," the other man says.

He's expecting early, quiet breakfast, but instead the mess is full of people talking and it smells like cooking meat and boiling water in the hall, and the food is distinctly un-breakfast-like. It must be dinner, then. Which means he's been asleep for far longer than he should have.

Before he's sitting down he's opening his mouth, but he hasn't got time to speak because Sheppard shoves a piece of fruit into it.

"Hello to you too," he manages, setting down his tray and biting down so he can take the other half of the fruit out of it. "I'm capable of feeding myself, you know."

"There have been doubts," Elizabeth says, seated next to Sheppard at one of the long tables. "How are you feeling?"

"Rested. You should have woken me up sooner, I could have helped get some of the damage control done," he says, but he feels kind of good that they didn't. "How's the work coming? Also, soldiers on my door? Seriously?"

Elizabeth and Sheppard exchange a Look.

"Well, you needed to get some sleep," Sheppard says.

"Yes, thank you, four days without, I covered that. And thank you for the twelve hours uninterrupted," he says. "But really -- "

"Thirty," Sheppard interrupts.

"What?"

"You slept for a day and a half," Elizabeth says, and smiles at him. It's a strange smile and he hasn't had the time to learn yet what this smile means.

"Oh my god," he says.

"And, miraculously, the city didn't sink," Sheppard adds with a dip of his head.

" _Thirty hours?_ Have you any idea the kind of waste of time that is?"

"I tried to wake you up, twice," Elizabeth says. "We had Beckett in to make sure you weren't dying. Then we thought we'd let you catch up."

"Catch up? I'm so far behind it isn't even funny! I need to talk to Zelenka -- " he starts to get up, and Sheppard yanks on his arm and shoves another piece of fruit in his mouth. "FTOP NOOING NAT!" He spits onto his plate. "Stop doing that!"

"Rodney. Sit."

He finds his legs buckling underneath him before he can register that Elizabeth's given a command.

"Eat," she adds, and Sheppard looks at her like she's nuts, but suddenly all that food looks really good and clearly if Atlantis was going to blow up without him, it would have done so by now.

"I'll brief you after you've had a meal, and then you're going to sleep some more, because tomorrow at 0800 we're going to Earth," she continues, and he chokes on his reconstituted mashed potatoes.

"Why?" he asks.

"Senior staff need to speak to SGC. We'll gate back to Earth, then take the Daedalus to Atlantis when we're finished. This is non-negotiable, Rodney," she adds, as he's forming an objection through a mouthful of tinned beef stew. He swallows and finds he hasn't actually got anything to say, because he's still getting over 1. thirty hours of sleep, 2. guards on his door, and 3. going back to Earth.

"Did you put some kind of whammy on him?" Sheppard asks her, when Rodney continues to eat without speaking.

Elizabeth smiles at him and this time, he gets it.

After dinner, which takes a long time because hey, it's been thirty hours since he's eaten, they break off from Sheppard and he finds himself following her down the hallway to Senior Staff Quarters.

_His_ Senior Staff Quarters.

It is the most bizarre and enjoyable briefing he's ever had, and no briefs jokes were involved, because she didn't so much let him talk. But as he's walking her backwards into the wall of his quarters she starts with a list of the damaged portions of Atlantis, and when her shirt comes off she's breathlessly informing him of the repair work that's begun.

He listens to a concise account of the computer systems patches with her breasts in his hands and his lips grazing lines down her throat, which is unreasonably hot, but some of the stuff they've thought of while he's been out is brilliant, and brilliance gets him worked up.

Wraith body-disposal follows, while she's undoing his belt and hitching one bare leg around his hip, and that's good too, makes him angry, Wraiths in his city, and by the time she gets to the part where they're being autopsied and incinerated he's got his hands on her ass and both her thighs around his hips and he's very, very hard, cock rubbing against the warm, tender spot just below her waist. She tilts her head back and swallows.

"Supply manifest from the Daedalus," she moans, back arching against the wall as he slips inside her, and he kisses her quiet for a minute, kisses along her cheekbones and bites her earlobe and she digs her fingernails into his back. "You wouldn't believe -- oh -- "

"I think I would," he mumbles, as she angles her hips so that he can push deeper. She manages to get her eyes open and lock them on his.

"They brought coffee," she says, her voice low and throaty, and doesn't get anywhere past that because she's curled around him, he's inside her, and they're both gasping and slick with sweat and alive, oh god, they're alive, he had his hands inside a nuclear warhead, the same hands that are stroking down her ribcage, holding her still, and her tongue grazing across his teeth is the tongue that negotiated for those warheads and it's some kind of insane fucking circuit they're completing, or maybe they're just so glad to be alive and going to Earth tomorrow that they've actually lost their minds and when she bucks against him he pushes back and almost whites out, it's so good.

Afterwards he's apologetic because wow, hey, sex against a _wall_ , but she just leads him to the bed and he's asleep again before he realises that she isn't in the bed with him, just sitting on the edge and running her fingers through his hair.

When he wakes up to the alarm at 0600 (the right six o'clock this time) there's a bag sitting on his workdesk, packed with his clothes and personal items and his favourite laptop. There's a slab of Cadbury's milk chocolate sitting on top.

In two hours they're going to walk through to Earth and speak to SGC, and then she's going to go away to Sean or Simon or whatever his name is and have a nice reunion with her loved one.

He picks up the chocolate and unwraps it and hitches his hip against the table and decides he's okay with that.

***

"How was Earth?"

"You mean aside from almost dying on the way back here? Pretty pleasant."

"Did you see your family? You have a sister, yes?"

"I -- well. We had a lot of work to do, it wasn't like it was a vacation."

"Rodney, you must not always be working."

"I didn't work the whole time!"

"So, then. What did you do?"

***

"Now that," Rodney says, breathless, " _that_ felt like a revenge fuck."

Elizabeth sighs and turns away, and despite the postcoital glow she knows the anger is practically thrumming through her body. "You can be an asshole sometimes, McKay."

"I can be an asshole all the time. It's a natural talent, but I only bother for special people," he replies. "Don't assume that I care that it was revenge, I'm just pointing it out."

"Simon isn't coming to Atlantis," she mutters.

"Then Simon's not worth Atlantis."

_Not worth you_ , he should have said, but Elizabeth knows that Rodney doesn't deal in humans the same way he deals in theories and objects. It wouldn't occur to him to use a personal scale; if Simon doesn't want to go to Atlantis then Atlantis doesn't want him, never mind whether she does or not.

A broad hand brushes her shoulder, and there's a hesitant touch against the nape of her neck, his nose nuzzling against bare skin, breath warm between her shoulderblades. Rodney will never take this personally, this thing they keep doing. He touches her, he reassures her, he grounds her, but if she told him tomorrow that they had to stop, he'd stop, and nothing would change. He'd regret the loss of a bed partner, maybe, but he wouldn't treat her any differently. She wonders if he's capable of actually caring about someone anymore beyond the basic human instinct to protect the tribe. Or maybe he is, and she doesn't see it because he doesn't care about her, not like that.

"I could write us an equation," Rodney says quietly.

"What?"

"An equation. That calculates us, that makes us add up and make sense. I could write a formula that would take into account the variables, the exterior forces, my trajectory, your fixed point. It would have to function so that all possible permutations equal out to the same result. Could be fun," he muses. "Simon wouldn't be a factor anymore, would he."

"No," she says, and thinks she'll break and cry and let him hold her, but she doesn't; she wonders if that's something _she_ can't do anymore.

"Definitely not worth Atlantis," he repeats, and actually maybe, after all, when he says Atlantis he means something other than the city.

***

There's no reason not to look anymore, no reason not to find someone on Atlantis she could be with, but Elizabeth is head of the mission and it gets awkward when everyone you know could sue you for sexual harassment if they weren't comfortable going out with you. She could try and make something out of this habit she and McKay have fallen into, but she doesn't want to. That's something different, and besides she can't imagine spending leisure time with McKay (if he even knows what that is) or going on a date, oh my god, the awkwardness, or living with him.

The scientists are her direct subordinates and the Marines are, well, such typical Marines, and John Sheppard doesn't have eyes for women, even when he's winking at them, and Dr. Beckett knows way too much about her intimate bodily health for comfort.

She's too busy, anyway; there are new faces in Atlantis and they all have to be trained and the inevitable small frictions between new and old smoothed over, and there are supplies to distribute, and before she knows it time has _passed_.

She goes offworld, which is rare, to negotiate a trade agreement with a reasonably-advanced society that wants to swap their root crops for seed from the mainland, to hybridise the hardy Atlantean grains with their own. Because the seed is technically the Athosians', she is mediating a complex deal, and at the end of the day she's tired, grateful for the small empty house they show her to -- a house whose last occupants were Wraith-culls.

She doesn't want to eat the food that's in the kitchen, dead peoples' food, and she makes do with whatever's in her vest as she lights a fire to warm the chilly house -- there are fireplaces in every room, and apparently the town hasn't got as far as electric heat yet, though they have light-bulbs powered by solar cells. Or maybe they just like fires.

Outside she can hear voices. She recognises some of the Marines, as well as Sheppard's low rumble and Rodney's strident tones. They fade off and she's about to find a blanket and sleep here on the floor by the fire in the dead peoples' living room when there's a knock at the door.

"Sheppard sent me," Rodney says, and that's a lie. "With food." And that's not. The food is sweet vegetable-bread and something that passes for butter, made from sap in the local trees. She offers him some as she eats, but he waves it off.

"I don't like to eat the local food," he says, as if there's some story behind it. She stops chewing. "N -- nono, no, it's okay for you. Just. Allergies," and he waves vaguely at his face. She tilts her head at the seat next to her on the low sofa (dead person's sofa) and he sits, watching her eat. After a while, tired of his focus, she swipes her thumb through the not-quite-butter and smears it on his lip, grinning.

His tongue darts out, automatically and without thought, cleaning it off, and something in her catches.

"If I die, I'm blaming you," he says, quite seriously.

"You won't die, Rodney," she replies.

"I am constantly on the verge of death."

"That must be very stressful."

"Katie Brown asked me to have dinner with her," he blurts, and she closes her eyes. It's been a very long day. But, Rodney-like, he just keeps going, so she doesn't have to formulate a reply. "So I thought I'd ask, and we haven't had any time to talk actually and this is probably not the greatest time anyway but I need to know if this _habit_ we have is actually a thing, or rather a Thing with a capital letter, and if so if it's an exclusive Thing -- you know what? This is bad timing, huh."

She nods, looking down at her hands.

"Yeah, I do that," he says, almost thoughtful.

"I hadn't thought it was exclusive," she says, "given that at the time we began I had a boyfriend."

"And then had sex with me when he -- I'm going to stop talking now."

"Miracles may happen," she murmurs.

"Nice," he says, but his heart's not in the sarcasm.

"Can we talk about it back at Atlantis?" she asks, and he nods. Bastion of self-control, Rodney McKay.

This is really unsettling, sitting on a dead person's sofa in a dead person's house. Atlantis, of course, it's all dead peoples' things, but it has the appeal of age, and the wound on this house is fresh.

"Are you at all as creeped out by -- "

"Yes," she says.

"Want me to stay?" he sounds nervous, as if this actually _is_ a Thing, and not just a habit. "Or should I -- "

"No, stay. Rodney. Stay," she says, and kisses his lower lip, sucking gently. He makes a quiet _hmmm_ noise. "But...I'd really like to sleep."

His hand on the back of her neck is affectionate and only slightly possessive. "Sleep it is."

He's warm, tucking her between himself and the back of the sofa that's really too small for him alone, let alone them together, but they find a balance and she curls into his chest, feeling like she used to when she read under the covers after bedtime -- something she could get in trouble for, but something also private and safe and right.

Later she manages to explain to him that she had never thought it was a Thing, though she uses better words than that because he might be a genius but sometimes he's completely sub-coherent. He looks relieved.

Apparently his date with Katie goes really, really badly.

***

And then Doctor Rodney McKay wipes out a solar system. Just like that.

He's the original mad scientist. The man homebrews his own sunblock, redesigns weapons of mass destruction for fun, runs an entire city using a computer system written in a different language, and can actually hit what he's shooting at, most of the time. He's spent years training to understand The Way The Universe Works, from wormhole physics to the reason a toaster toasts bread (and can connect the two in unsettling ways -- _imagine the Stargate is the coil of a multidimensional non-Newtonian toaster..._ )

God fucking forbid he ever use his powers for evil.

Sometimes it feels like she's holding a leash on a very dangerous wild animal, or sometimes it's Sheppard holding the leash. Either way, both of them let it slip, and it mauled a solar system to death. Rodney can't hold his own leash, and neither of them realised that until today.

The door to his quarters opens for her -- very few doors in Atlantis won't open for Doctor Elizabeth Weir -- and in the dark room inside he's sitting on the bed, knees drawn up, elbows resting on them and wrists askew, head bowed, laptop at his feet, blue-lighting the black of his trousers.

"So, interesting day," she says, and he looks up. She can see what he's thinking -- resignation, another round of shouting that he knows he deserves. She steps inside, and the doors close behind her. He's quiet, waiting, and that's the scariest thing of all.

Because he didn't know they were holding the leash either, and now he thinks he has to do it all by himself.

She sits on the bed next to him, rests her cheek on his shoulder. On the laptop, the sensor footage is looped, playing again and again as the little dots representing planets wink out one by one.

"I wish we had MALP footage of it," he says quietly. "It'd make it a lot more real."

"I don't really think you want it to be any more real," she replies.

"I fucked it up badly today," he says. "Sheppard's nine kinds of angry with me. You're about twelve kinds, huh?"

"Just two," she replies. "One for being an arrogant asshole, and one for being too persuasive for your own good. But, hey. I knew about the arrogant asshole part a long time ago."

He nods, which is not the laugh she was hoping for. She draws her arm around his shoulders, tilts his head against hers.

"So why are you here?" he asks wearily.

"You're smart," she says, and then he does laugh, a single dry catch in his throat. "And if you weren't fast on your feet, we'd all be dead three or four times over. I don't want this to scare you, Rodney, not like that. I don't want it to make you...timid."

He nods against her hair, eyes still on the endless sensor loop. Planets; explosion; out they go, one by one.

"I want you to be brilliant and talking too fast for people to follow you and always willing to take the risks you need to take," she continues. "I don't want this to crush you. Shouting aside."

"You shout pretty well," he observes.

"You deserved it. But." She inhales. "Sheppard and I are supposed to be watching out for you, so you don't have to keep it in check yourself. You need to trust us to tell you when to stop. That's what I want you to take away from this. Not that you aren't a good person, not that you shouldn't use your brilliance. Just...that you should listen."

She closes the laptop, and the little universe in the computer, which is probably often more real than the actual universe to Rodney, winks out. His breathing slows fractionally and, when she doesn't say anything more, he finally starts to talk.

"When they built the atomic bomb, they did a lot of tests," he says, in a low and slow voice she's never heard from him before. "There are still arguments in ethics classes about whether or not just showing the New Mexico tests to the Japanese would have ended the war. I think they would have had to be there in person, myself. There's film footage of Oppenheimer talking about the first atomic blast he saw, you know. He's got these really deep black eyes, because it's old film so you can't see the colour of his eyes, they're just black."

"He quotes Hindu scripture," she says. "I've seen it."

"There's another thing he says," Rodney continues. " _The physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose_."

She slides her fingers through the soft hair around his temple, comforting. They stay like that for a long time.

***

When Sheppard starts going haywire, like Ford did, and then they have to hunt him, like they did Ford, and then he's put into a coma (unlike Ford, small favour) McKay holds it together surprisingly well. He doesn't haunt the infirmary where Sheppard is being un-bug-ified. He focuses on the job, he gets things done, and he's still so essentially McKay that nobody notices the added tension in his jaw, the higher, angrier pitch to his voice, and the way that he starts using sarcasm to defend himself instead of offend others.

Elizabeth notices.

In those weeks where Sheppard is confined to the infirmary, first unconscious and then conscious and then conscious and bored and annoying, she spends more of her nights in McKay's bed than her own. Even then he isn't frantic or demanding or miserable, not on the surface. Half the time they both sleep, exhaustedly, with not even the thought of sex, and she leaves early in the morning before Atlantis wakes.

"Do you miss him?" she asks quietly, one time.

"Of course," he slurs, half-asleep. Not _who?_ or _it's his own stupid fault_ or _why do you ask?_ just, _Of course_.

She and Sheppard have always been a team when it comes to McKay. She wonders if he's told Sheppard about them. She wonders what Sheppard said in reply, if he did.

***

On their first mission out after Sheppard's approved for duty again, Rodney gets shot.

It's not like it's a big deal, it was inevitable, but it went pretty far into his shoulder and there's a lot of blood and he can't really talk because Beckett shoved an oxygen mask on him and a gurney under him the minute they came back through the gate. He tries anyway but his hands don't seem as coordinated and then someone's holding them down -- Elizabeth, leaning across his body in the Gateroom.

"You're going to be okay," she says, and he trusts her because now, barring her being an idiot (which happens with depressing regularity), when she says, he does.

So he closes his eyes and when he opens them again he's in medical, on the really good drugs.

It takes him a few minutes to surface, as much as he's going to surface on the _really great drugs_ , and when he does he finds Zelenka sitting next to him and a neat row of pudding cups on a tray next to his bed. Zelenka immediately wins his Person I Dislike The Least award for the day.

"It is good to see you awake," Zelenka says solemnly, and offers him a spoon.

Rodney works his way through the pudding cups as Zelenka gives him a full report, a steady monologue: he was unconscious for nine hours, two of those in surgery. Colonel Sheppard has been talking darkly about firebombing in regards to the planet they were on, but it has mostly blown over now. The computers have been registering minute power spikes in unexplored areas of the city, and a team has been dispatched to investigate and report their findings to him. They have been warned not to touch anything. They are awaiting his return to begin activating a new set of sensors they've found in one of the maintenance subroutines. Rodney is gratified by this consideration for their fallen leader.

As he's finishing eating, Zelenka grins and nods at a corner of the room. "Soon you will simply be having the staff meetings here, I think. Is Doctor Weir, is Colonel Sheppard, is Doctor Beckett..."

Rodney follows his gaze.

Beckett isn't in evidence, but Weir is sitting on a chair set against a wall, her head tipped back, sleeping. Next to her, in a second chair, Sheppard is also asleep, his head tilted to rest on hers, and it makes Rodney's neck cramp just looking at them. Neither of them look particularly happy, faces worried even in sleep, and Sheppard has his legs tucked in under the seat, a sure sign of tension. Normally he sprawls as if that's what he was designed to do.

He glances back at Zelenka, who is looking a little impressed. Rodney wonders what conclusions he's drawing, then dismisses it.

"I have a very complicated life," he says to Zelenka, not so much explaining as summarising.

"So I see," Zelenka replies.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a gratuitous out-of-story chapter which is basically just light bondage porn. If you'd like to skip it you won't miss anything vital -- just head to the next chapter.

The first thing Elizabeth does when Sheppard's team is safely back from their little field trip with crazy Aidan Ford is amend her databurst appropriately. No need to worry any families unnecessarily now that their sons and brothers are no longer MIA. There's a transmission to the mainland to let the Athosians know that Teyla is safe, and then a quick meal and she can go to her quarters and --

Find Rodney McKay waiting for her, inside. Quiet, still, hands behind his back, at what she might almost call parade rest.

"You have to stop hacking the city," she says, as the door shuts behind her. "Because this? Just slightly creepy, Rodney."

"The doors opened for me," he answers. And then he's silent again. And that's even creepier.

"Did you need something?"

"Oh...yes," he says, but he doesn't smile, not like any _normal human being_ would. "I need -- help."

"No argument there."

"Elizabeth."

This is something serious, she can see that, but he's only just come down off a huge dose of the Wraith enzyme and about two bad minutes where he thought his entire team had died, so she's wary.

"I -- do not -- have a lot of control," he stutters. "And I need -- there was this whole -- portion of time when I wasn't at all, and the last time that happened -- "

"Shh, it's okay," she says, moving closer. He doesn't move, doesn't shift, but she can see now the effort it's taking him to hold back, and something in the back of her head clicks into place.

He moves his arms then, bringing them around, presenting them to her -- wrists together, hands turned up, palms open. Another small click in her mind.

She looks him directly in the eye. There are hollows above his cheekbones, and under them too. Detox wasn't kind.

"You've done this before," she says.

"Have you?" he asks, incredulous, and she tilts her mouth slightly and he drops like his feet were cut out from underneath him. To his knees.

 _Where he belongs_ that little voice inside her says, the one she hasn't heard in oh, quite a while.

"How does this work?" she asks, a little more sharply than she intended, because you can't play the game until you set the rules. And games like this are not really games at all.

"It's a logical sequence," he says, eyes on the floor. "I lost control."

"That's right."

"That's frightening."

"I'm sure it must have been."

"So I find a safe place." He hesitates. "A place where losing control doesn't scare me. A place where I can trust."

"In me?"

"And myself."

 _Right answer_ says the voice. "How many times have you done this?"

He shakes his head. "Once."

"How'd that end?"

She can see just the corners of his smile. "I came to Atlantis, didn't I?"

Oh. _Oh_. Rodney.

But she thinks she can play this; it's pretty straightforward, and he knows what he's doing, and it isn't about humiliation, which always made her uncomfortable. And that voice in the back of her head wants it. As much as she's wanted him as a safe haven, now she wants him...

Well. On his knees.

 _Safeword_. "Red - yellow - green work okay for you?" she asks. He nods. "Rodney, look at me."

He raises his face, eyes blanking out. She questions whether he's lying about having done this once or whether he's just much better at interpersonal psychology than he lets on or bothers with.

"Are you sure?"

He swallows and nods. And then tilts his head at the table. Rope, and a rag of cloth she recognises as a shredded uniform shirt. Not the one she cut off him, but a shirt from some mission or other, saved for rags, which have a remarkable number of uses. They waste nothing on Atlantis.

There's also a small knife. She picks it up.

"This? No," she says, and tosses it aside. It skitters across the floor, into a corner.

"Thank god," he murmurs.

"Is that what they used last time?" she asks, eyebrows raising.

"Only to threaten," he says, eyes on the floor again.

"What?"

"Ma'am. Only to threaten. Ma'am."

She picks up the rope and comes back to him.

"Come with me."

They walk through the hallway, him a half-step behind, looking like they're coming from a late meeting or going to one; it's night in the city, and most of the lights are dimmed. They only see one person, some lower-level scientist, and they aren't bothered at all.

He only stops when she waves open the door to his lab, the public one where most of the work with the senior scientists is done.

"Here, Rodney," she says.

"But -- "

"I'm sorry, were you _questioning me?_ "

"No," he says hastily. "Ma'am."

"Because it sounds like you were questioning me."

"No, n-no."

"You don't think I'm in control here?"

"You are." Another sharp inhale.

"Don't forget that. Off," she says, gesturing to his shirt. He glances at the door, opaque and closed but not locked as far as he knows. Still, his hands find the zip (her hands, they belong to her) and he strips it off.

McKay's not a small man on any scale, barrel-chested, broad-shouldered, and he's stronger than he looks. All that pent-up muscle, and better yet all that pent-up intelligence, that's hers now. Maybe he needs a reminder.

"Boots, socks, come on," she says, and he's moving faster now. "You can leave your pants on."

"Thank you, ma'am," he says softly, and holds out his arms again. She'd chastise him for that, but he's only anticipating her next request.

She loops the rope loosely around his left wrist, talking in a low voice, which seems to help ease the slight tremor in his fingers. Nerves or leftover detox remnants, she isn't certain.

"I'm going to set a timer," she says softly, holding his wrist, thumb inching across the sensitive skin there. "For one hour. Because you're fast, aren't you? And if you haven't learned what you need to know in an hour, then you're not fast enough, are you?"

He nods instead of answering. She lets that one slide.

"For that hour, you belong to me. You are my property. This wrist? What's this wrist?"

"Your wrist," he murmurs. His eyes are a little glazed, at least from what she can see.

"And this wrist?" she asks, looping the rope over his other arm. "Who does that belong to?"

"You, ma'am."

"And the knees you should be on?" she says, strapping the knot tight. He kneels.

"Yours."

She kneels in front of him. "And this?" she asks, cupping his erection through his pants.

"Yours," he gasps.

"My what?"

He can't say the words -- he's modest that way, Rodney, not a big talker during sex, which is actually a shock in itself.

"If you can't answer me we're not going to get very far," she hisses in his ear.

"Your cock," he manages, through clenched teeth. "Ma'am."

And because he remembered the ma'am, she strokes it just slightly with her fingers as she pulls away.

"I'm going to leave you alone here," she says, and his body jerks but he doesn't object, and she knows how hard that is for him. This has been coming, she sees now, since the explosion. "I'll be back. Trust me?"

He shudders.

"Trust me?"

"Yes," he whispers. And because that time he doesn't say Ma'am, she adds three minutes onto how long she was going to leave him.

She doesn't turn the lab lights on.

Outside in the hallway she leans against the wall and stops her own trembling, because it's been a long time and he's _McKay_ and this is still freaking her out just a little.

She doesn't think anyone will come by, but he's trusting her to keep him safe, and he'll know if she's anxious. So she closes off the corridors on either end, notifying the gateroom so nobody comes after them, and then for good measure keys the door locks on the lab to her own personal code. When she tells the gateroom, "McKay and I are conducting a sensitive experiment," it isn't entirely a lie.

The timer will flick the lights on in the lab when an hour has passed, minus the five minutes they just spent establishing that he no longer owns himself. That ought to be quite enough loss of control for Rodney, especially in his own lab, where he controls everything.

And then she sits in front of the door and waits. It's got to be worse for him, because she didn't tell hiim when she was coming back, but the eight minutes feel awfully long to her as well, body thrumming with purpose.

Forty-seven minutes. She stands up and opens the door.

He hasn't moved, hands placidly in his lap where she left them, and she hopes he's been appreciating that she was good enough not to tie them behind his back. His skin's lit only by the various open laptops and lit-up Ancient tech in the room.

He must have heard the door open, but he doesn't move. The last time she saw him this still was asleep in the infirmary, and she tries not to think about that.

His hair is longer than the regulation cuts the Marines wear, but still short enough to indicate a life spent working for the government, conservative without being stark, utilitarian. And very soft, as she slides her fingers through it.

"First sound you make, I'll break one of your toys," she says, and he nods to show he's heard. "There's a lot to break in here."

She keeps ruffling her fingers in his hair, exploring it, challenging him to make a sound. She can see his world shrinking to two things: the sensation of her fingertips across his scalp, and the command not to make a noise. If he stays silent, he'll be safe. He can trust her.

It's powerful, this knowledge, and it's served her well in negotiation before, when she can summon it up. Perhaps she needed this too. It's been a while.

She runs the heel of her hand down and over the ridge of his ear, pressing her palm over it, blocking out sound on one side. She can see his fingers flex.

"Disorientation, Rodney, it's all part of the process. Trust is fine up until you balk at falling."

He nods again as she slides her hand down further, possessive around his throat. Feels him swallow against her thumb. Feels naked vulnerability under her hand. And he knows her well enough to know how much damage she can do if she really puts her mind to it.

"Wish you'd brought me a collar," she murmurs. He stills, and his lips part with a soft noise. It's a request; asking permission. "What, got one lying around here? You and Zelenka getting kinky in the lab without me?"

He'd laugh, but he hasn't been given permission. She can feel it in the way the muscles under his skin (over his very, very fragile windpipe) shift and tense.

"Tell me where it is," she says.

"Second desktop, behind you, ma'am," he replies. "Between the laptops."

She really is curious now, and with a last ruffle of his hair she stands and moves away, searching. When she sees the dark jumble of fabric, she could almost laugh herself. It's a thigh-holster, part of the nylon shredded. The upper strap has been carefully detached, seam-threads picked out, obviously awaiting a replacement holster.

The fact that there are bits of gun holsters lying in amongst the lab junk is an unexpected turn-on. Guns and science. She's gotten used to the teams carrying weapons, but she stops and thinks about the fact that the kneeling man over there normally has a gun strapped on. Tight around his thigh. This man carries a gun.

The strap has a buckle on it, and hell, it'll do. She pulls it snug-tight around his throat from behind, buckles, adjusts the loose end.

"Green?" she asks, because he didn't bring a collar along, which means something. Possibly that he simply forgot, but she has to be sure.

"Green," he rasps.

She kneels behind him and tugs gently on the makeshift collar and his head rises just a little. She's not interested in throttling him, just -- making sure he knows who's in control. And with her hand on the collar and his hands bound up she's free to explore. She skates her other hand across his back and chest, finding the places that most people feel vulnerable, then as a reward, places that most people feel sensitive. Bends her head to press it against his shoulder, inhale.

He can't be comfortable, knees locking up, sensitisation making it hard not to lean into her, and she imagines that he's not so glad he got to keep his pants on, now. But his comfort isn't really her concern. He belongs to her for an hour. Well. For thirty-five minutes, now.

She slides her hands down his thighs from behind, pressing into him, then runs them back up the insides and lets her fingers brush his cock. He gasps --

"And you were doing so well," she says, immediately withdrawing, standing and stepping away. "Don't think this is nice for me either. I told you not to make a sound, and now I can't have my toy."

He gasps again -- can't help it -- and she contemplates knocking him to the floor. But, well, there's no need for actual pain, not if she's good at what she does.

"Should I have brought the knife after all?" she says, and feels just a little smug that some people don't need to keep an _actual_ knife around and also what kind of fucked-up untrained asshole would put a knife to Rodney's throat?

 _Or any other part of him_ , says the really dark little voice, and that one she's never let out to play because that one's awfully troubling sometimes.

He gets himself under control, inhaling, exhaling, but when she wraps her fingers around his throat again there's no vibration, no sign he's trying to make a sound.

"These are really easy rules," she says. "I tell you what not to do, you do it, you get punished. I'm not sure why I have to go over them again with you. You don't have all that much time. Do I need to spell this out for you again?"

A headshake.

"All right then," she says, and counts off five minutes without touching him, not out loud of course, just to make him wait for it.

"Prove it," she says finally, as she kneels behind him again. This time she doesn't bother with touching; if he can't prove himself now then this whole exercise is futile, and while it's fun that would also be a waste of her time and resources.

So instead she unbuckles his belt and slides it out through the loops. From behind, leaning over his shoulder -- he tips his head back but the important thing is he's looking at the ceiling, not at her -- she finds the button and zip of the trousers, undoes them, slides the clothing down over his hips as much as is possible. It's enough, anyway, and she hears the hastily-stifled sigh of relief. If he'd let that one slip she really would have broken something in the lab, or at least made something crash convincingly. Something that could be fixed, though. And she smiles a little proudly because he has to know she'd make good on her threat, which means he trusts her to know what can be broken.

Twenty-one minutes. Long enough, well-timed, if she does this right.

"I could get used to a pet like you," she says, and feels the muscles of his shoulders flex. "Just kidding," she adds, grinning against his skin. "Still, shame to give this all up. You'd learn to heel and beg pretty quickly, I think. Especially the begging."

She digs her nails lightly into his thighs, not enough to cause pain, just enough to remind him that she could. Really easily.

"Seems like you'd enjoy begging. Seems like you're about there now, aren't you?" she asks, rocking against him a little. "Tempted? Maybe if you asked I'd touch you. I can read your mind," she adds in a whisper. "Even yours, pet. Not that hard. On the other hand, if you do ask," and she lifts one hand to twine it in the collar again. "I'd hate to make a mess of the lab."

That sets him off almost more than the idea she might actually touch him; his back arches and he jerks forward for a moment but the collar's there to hold him and he doesn't make any noise when he does it so she can't really punish him. He twists, hanging in the air before settling back because, well, it must have been kind of hard for him to breathe for a second.

"Green?"

He nods. She waits, just to be sure, but he nods again more vigorously. Twelve minutes.

"Take it from me," she continues, resting her hand very comfortably on his thigh. "You can't be boss all the time. Not even me. Now, I cook a little, as a hobby, and I read and play solitaire on the computer."

Solitaire on the computer really pisses him off. He considers it an active misuse of the gifts that god and Charles Babbage have bestowed upon them. She's heard his Sermon Regarding Solitaire.

"You," she says, ignoring the enraged momentary bend of his spine, "seem to be just a little kinkier about it. Or, well, perhaps not all the time, but I'm sure that if I left you here for the lab staff to find, they'd draw a different conclusion."

He sags back against her. Score one for her; fear of being found this way, far overriding dislike of computer games. She wonders what else she can use to distract him from her hand sliding upwards.

"Very much a new vision of you, isn't it? Head of the science division, technical officer on the elite alpha exploration team, Sheppard's special hand-picked -- "

There's a reaction in there somewhere -- maybe the word _elite_ , he likes that word -- or maybe something to do with his team. She pauses, thinks, continues.

"Think of what they would say about your team," she tries. No, not quite there, he's not reacting to that except by proxy. But the point, the very important point, is that he seems only half-conscious that she's holding his erection in her hand. His hips barely buck, and he makes no noise at all.

"As pretty as you are, people might talk. You'd never say who left you here, after all, and they might assume it was Teyla. She seems the type to tie a man up and collar him."

He's losing interest, and instead focusing on her hand, and that has to stop.

"Do you suppose they'd think of Sheppard?" she asks, and -- wow. There's the knot. John Sheppard. She should really have seen that a _long_ time before now. "They wouldn't be at all surprised to find out John Sheppard finally tied Rodney McKay up and left him to be found by his lab assistants, because really that's what everyone thinks he should have done a long time ago."

Rodney's biting his lip, eyes shut.

"Open your eyes," she orders, and they snap open, but at the same time a huff of air -- oh, that was almost a noise, wasn't it?

But he's so still, and so obedient, that she can't be positive. Six minutes.

"And just _think_ what would happen," she says, glee entering her voice, "If Sheppard himself saw that you were in your lab and decided to come by with some coffee? He must do that three or four times a week."

Ab-so-lute stillness. She slides her palm up the length of his cock, and he doesn't even twitch.

So there is someone whose opinion he cares about. Well, two people. She's pretty sure that if he didn't care what she thought of him they would never have gotten close to this far.

"But I won't do that," she says, and _then_ she feels a twitch. "If."

She actually thinks she almost can hear his thoughts. _Oh god_.

"Hold on for me," she whispers, and begins touching in earnest, arms wrapped around his body, stroking his cock with his bound-up wrists just below, fingers twitching now, shoulders jerking, legs tensing and relaxing. Still no sound, and his eyes are still open but completely glassy, and she can just about see the digital readout on her watch. One minute.

"If you come now I'll leave you here and I'll be sure that Sheppard's the first one down in the morning," she growls, and his entire body tenses with the effort of keeping it in. "I'll sign my _name_ on you," because she's suddenly very certain that Rodney hasn't told Sheppard anything about them. "I'll leave you here with your pants open and this collar around your neck -- "

And that's when the lights flick on and he knows their time is up and with a long sigh of relief he sways back against her, coming on his thigh and her hand and the floor.

She slides her hand across his trousers to clean it off, not moving as she unties the rope and rubs his fingers to make sure they're not numb. Standing is harder, he's been on his knees a long time, but he manages, leaning on her shoulder, levering himself up.

He turns to face her for the first time since it started, and she's almost a little shocked that he isn't crying, because god knows she would be.

"Get what you need?" she asks.

"Green," he manages, and touches the collar at his throat, unbuckling it almost regretfully. "I mean. Wow."

She grins. "You were great. That was great, Rodney."

"You should -- okay, you know what, I almost said something really inappropriate about a second career for you, there," he says, looking down and fumbling with the zip on his pants, wincing a little. She rubs his arm, offers him his shirt.

"I'll take you to your quarters."

She lets him shower the sweat away on his own, because he seems to want that, and curls up with him on his bed, hand stroking his back lightly, affectionate now, not commanding.

Lying there in the dark, noticing that he brought the holster-strap with him, she wonders if it is anything more than a patch on some bigger problem. She half-thinks that nothing they did tonight will work, and while it was fun to do she thinks that perhaps between the two of them, if he comes to her again for this -- it might be a good idea to say no next time.

But it does work, and by some happenstance she's there to see it: next mission out, when Sheppard's trapped in a time-bubble -- and it could be that it's Sheppard trapped, which gives Rodney focus -- he's on the mark, past his usual standard even, talking fast, decimating Beckett's objections and her own. He can't control what's happening to Sheppard, but he isn't afraid.

He's not a natural submissive, anyway -- dominance is his personality, not an act he puts on. Which somehow makes that hour in the lab even more valuable, that he gave it up not just for her but to fix himself when he was broken. She finds it oddly precious, something to be savoured.

Especially since, if his reaction to Sheppard is any indication, what they have (tenuous and strange at the best of times) is not going to last forever.


	3. Chapter 3

Rodney is really not very good at all at this emotions stuff. Elizabeth's much better. Unfortunately Elizabeth doesn't have anyone to be Elizabeth for her, except for him, so he does the best he can. Because in his own way he is fond of Elizabeth despite her not perhaps being the most rational thinker in the world.

She's crying. Sitting with him on his sofa in his quarters and crying. He really -- Elizabeth Weir is crying, and he doesn't know _why_.

This is not a What Would Sheppard Do situation.

There must be a decent human being inside Rodney somewhere, because he managed to conjure Samantha Carter up when he was, oh, _dying underwater_ a few weeks ago, and she seemed pretty decent. And since she was him, rationally, psychologically, this is a What Would McKay's Subconscious Do situation.

Talk?

Talking seems rational enough.

He lifts one knee, enough to raise Elizabeth's head a little in his lap, and props his foot on the coffee table. She adjusts, turning up to face him, and wipes her eyes, swipes across her nose with the back of her hand.

"So," he says, and talking -- that comes naturally. It's just a matter of downshifting from _you're all fucking idiots, why do I bother_. "We seem to be taking turns at the whole nervous breakdown thing."

She laughs a little, around a sob.

"Which is fine, but I have dibs on the next one. I promise to make it really interesting," he continues. "I mean, you know me, never a dull or quiet moment."

He rests one hand on her stomach, thumb rubbing the fabric lightly. This, he's also getting better at. Slowly.

"But I was thinking, maybe neither of us would break down so often if -- life-threatening things aside, being shot offworld and all the demons of my nightmares bearing down on Atlantis with two thirds of a ZPM and most of our actual interfaces jury-rigged with modded ethernet cables -- "

"Rodney," she says softly.

"Right," he agrees. "Sorry. What I mean is, maybe we should try this before it reaches event-horizon stage."

She rubs her eyes again. "What did you have in mind?"

"I don't know. Some kind of regularity. Not a schedule, okay, even I'm not that pathetic, just -- how does a week from today sound?"

An eyebrow arches. Hallelujah, she's stopped crying.

"Are you suggesting a date?"

"Nononono, no-no, not a date," he says hastily, and again there's that relief in her face which would be a little more flattering if he weren't seeing it while they were talking about sex. "More like an appointment."

"An appointment."

"Do they teach you that in Diplomat School, the whole repeating-stuff-back-to-me thing?"

She blinks, and he realises they probably did, and it's even possible he's the first to call her on it.

"I'm just saying, a regular appointment for fantastic sex might act like a release valve."

"Such an engineer," she says almost affectionately. "Appointments sound a little...Doctor Heightmeyer -- " she pauses, because she hears something, and narrows her eyes. "Are you -- "

He lifts his own eyebrows.

"Are you humming _Sexual Healing_?" she asks, incredulous.

"I work with what I have," he says stiffly. She laughs and turns her face into his stomach, letting his hand slide up to her hip.

"You are completely classless," she says, into his shirt.

"I'm sorry I missed out on _charm school_ but I was kind of in the middle of revolutionising astrophysics," he retorts, and reminds himself to downshift, but she doesn't seem to notice and hey, when did all his emotional commands turn into some kind of jumper-pilot metaphor, anyway? Fucking _Sheppard_.

"Are you thinking every...Thursday or something?" she asks, sitting up slowly. He cups her shoulder, and no gentleman would refuse help to a woman attempting to straddle his lap.

"Thursday, Sunday afternoon, whatever," he says loftily, when she's done kissing him. "Rescheduling for minor disasters, infirmary stays, and-or Wraith attacks, of course."

She leans back and looks at him. "Why suggest this now?"

Honesty seems best.

"Because I haven't the faintest clue why you're crying," he replies. "I mean, nobody's been blown up recently and it's been a while since either of us have almost died and nothing's fallen apart in the past few days, so this is kind of confusing, you know?"

She rests her head against his shoulder. "The words you want are, _do you want to talk about it?_ , I think."

"I was getting there," he says defensively.

"It was just a really long day," she says, not moving her forehead from his shoulder. "And I figured out I can actually find someone who won't get upset that the head of the mission has long days. So, you know. Buildup. It won't happen again."

"Hey -- it's okay, I'm not pissed off," he tells her. "Science is all about inquiry."

She sighs. "I'm not an experiment."

"No. You're the fixed point. No need to poke at a fixed point. Just letting it be what it is," he says.

Apparently math is the right method here, because she kisses him and there isn't any more crying or talking, just them.

***

"All right," Sheppard says, to the crowd of new Marines, fresh off the Daedalus and looking somewhat browbeaten already. "This concludes your official introductory mission briefing. That wasn't so bad, was it?"

There's a murmur of assent from the knot of soldiers, and Elizabeth, looking down on them from a balcony, smiles a little. This is her city. She finds it good.

"We do have a few unofficial words, however," and this time the noise is more of a stifled groan. "It'll be fast, I promise. I just want you to remember that your duties here are not direct offensive combat. Your job is to defend the city, and also to protect the civilians. The scientists are your concern, and if one of them is hurt, you're responsible."

This is the part she loves.

"With a short presentation on that, let me introduce to you our Chief Science Officer, Dr. Rodney McKay."

McKay, who had apparently been doing some diagnostic work on his tablet in a corner of the room, steps forward, looks up at the ceiling thoughtfully, and with a tap of his finger douses the lights to almost nothing. The tablet illuminates him and Sheppard, but only barely.

"Hi," he says. The soldiers shift uneasily. "I'm Dr. McKay. I helped raise Atlantis when most of you were still trying to figure out which end of a P-90 is supposed to be pointed at the bad guys. I wrote most of the code that allows our computers to interact with Ancient technology, and I am the executive sysadmin for the Earth-technology communications servers. In other words, I talk to the city."

She's aware of Zelenka next to her; he hasn't seen this before, and when she glances at him he's looking curious.

"With this little device," a wave of the tablet, "I can control when the lights come on in your quarters, what the temperature of the water is in your showers, what doors open for you, which of your intranet emails get through. With that little device," and he jerks his head at Sheppard, "I control what duty shifts you work, whether you go offworld, and who gets to spend their entire tour on Atlantis in the kitchens."

Sheppard shoots him an annoyed _I'm not a device and who are you calling little?_ look.

"So. Don't bother my scientists, don't harass my scientists, don't get in their way, don't be rude to them. That's _my_ job. Don't question them unless they're in imminent danger of death. Because I will know, and I will tell the city all about you."

He taps the tablet again, and the lights come up. "Understood?"

There's a swell of _yessir_ scored for a chorus of thirty-four anxious Marines.

"Dismissed," Sheppard says, and they obey with alacrity.

"I wouldn't have pegged you for much of a public speaker," Elizabeth calls down to McKay, who's already working on the tablet again.

"I taught graduate studies lectures for six years," he calls back, not looking up.

"Graduate students couldn't kill you with their bare hands."

"Obviously you haven't met many graduate students. Colonel, come and look at this," he says, and they bend their heads over the tablet together, conferring quietly.

"Next time, I bring popcorn," Zelenka tells her, grinning, as she smiles down on her boys.

***

There is one thing Sheppard has never told anyone vis a vis this whole "Ferris Wheel Complex" he supposedly has.

When he was a kid his dad had taken him to Chicago, the _birthplace_ of the Ferris wheel, to ride the big wheel at the lakeshore. That had been great, of course it had been great, but the ride itself never stays in the mind very long. What he remembered most vividly was that as they were walking away, towards downtown and dinner, he'd turned around and looked back at the wheel. He thought about airplanes, fighters, bombers -- this was not an uncommon thing to rest on John's mind -- and thought about the Ferris wheel, and how it would fall over if a fighter clipped it.

He'd actually started to tilt his head, lost in the majesty of the imaginary crash, when his father gave his sleeve a tug and they wandered away. The image stayed with him for years. It wasn't frightening, because it was just something he'd imagined. It was bigger than frightening. It was... _epic_.

John begins to dream at night that he is standing on an outlying pier promontory, looking back at the city, when there is a direct hit to the base of the tower. The tower itself seems to collapse sideways, splitting at the midpoint so that the highest observation deck comes crashing deep into its heart. The outlying towers bow inwards and break, tumbling after.

He watches this and slowly, as it collapses, he tilts his head.

John wakes in a cold sweat from the dream, often enough that he begins to consider ways to exorcise it. He checks the shields religiously and explores the giant fortifying legs at the base of the tower, looking for imperfections, thinking that if he can assure himself the city is safe he'll sleep better at night.

He resorts next to sleeping pills, or would have if he could have actually gotten the words out, but he's not big on doctors in general and he and Carson see a little bit too much of each other for his comfort. He never manages to actually ask.

Finally, one morning, he sits down at the laptop on his desk and pokes around the public server until he finds a CAD program. The digital model of the city is already there, probably built by one of McKay's underlings as a basis for their tracking diagrams. He studies the architecture for a while and then begins the process of slowly, pixel by pixel, destroying the city. He justifies to himself that he's in charge of city defence, and running sims to better identify evacuation areas is only common sense.

And this is how he knows he's in trouble, when he shows his work to McKay, the loop of the little cadded city collapsing over and over again. He just wants his views as a physicist, or at least that's what he tells him.

McKay watches the loop for about five minutes, silently, concentrating.

"It's wrong, isn't it," Sheppard asks.

"Clearly you slept your way to that A you got in Physics For Poets at college," McKay says. "I mean I'll help you fix it, Mr. The Laws Of Gravity Don't Work On The West Side Of The City -- "

"That's Colonel The Laws Of Gravity Don't Work On The West Side Of The City."

" -- but it's going to take time," McKay finishes, rolling his eyes at him. And he sets to work. Not, _This is really very creepy, Sheppard_ or _Do I need to check your rooms for bomb-building equipment, Colonel?_ , just unquestioning faith that Sheppard has a Plan. Interest in the challenge. Love of a good game of Let's Destroy The City.

Figures -- he bares his soul, not that McKay knew that, and in turn McKay decides to do the math. He's not sure where that analogy's going, but it can't end well.

John Sheppard decides he kind of might be screwed.

***

Rodney will never ever admit to anyone what he felt when he saw Weir and Sheppard in a passionate kiss, that one time they were possessed by evil aliens. Never mind that two minutes later they were trying to kill each other and everyone around them. The kiss was objectively pretty hot. Beckett agrees with him, though they both have to drink a lot before they can talk about it.

Part of it is that he isn't certain what he felt. A jolt like he sometimes gets when he fits data crystals into the Ancient consoles; a sense of mathematical rightness, a single line AB (RodneyElizabeth) becoming angle ABC (RodneyElizabethJohn). Inevitability; at some point, A and C will connect (RodneyJohn, and oh how that frightens him) to form a triangle. Equilateral, with any luck.

The thing is that he can't _explain_ any of it, because by all rights he should be smitten with Elizabeth (but isn't) and by all rights Sheppard should hardly have the patience to give him the time of day (but does). The point, he supposes, is that he's not angry that the woman he's sleeping with kissed his friend. And it would be utterly idiotic to be angry that his friend kissed the woman he's sleeping with.

So he classifies it all as spiritualistic nonsense and ignores it to the best of his ability, which seems to make both Elizabeth and the Colonel happy.

***

McKay's hands are shaking as he picks up the mug of stew and holds it to his lips, blowing to cool and then sipping the thick broth. It's MRE stew, so the carrots are technically actually carrots and the potatoes are probably real potatoes and the meat is actual cow, butchered in another galaxy, somewhere in the American midwest on Earth.

The hastily renamed Orion is an Ancient warship, but even the Ancients had to eat. Once they were in orbit, safely away from the magma-covered planet beneath them, the first thing that Sheppard did was send out exploration teams to find the kitchens and crew quarters. Now he sits across from McKay at a mess table in a room below the command deck and watches him slowly fall apart.

McKay speaks often and loudly of his own genius, but he's always half-startled when his more brilliant plans actually work. Before they got the ship up and running he was in constant motion, but as soon as he was no longer needed he locked up in fear. Sheppard can't have that. McKay's still got a lot of work ahead of him. The Orion wants to fly.

"You all right?" he asks, as McKay spoons a chunk of potato into his mouth. Blue eyes flick up to meet his; there's a half-nod, and he continues eating. "The Daedalus is taking some of the refugees off our hands, they're bound for Atlantis within the hour."

"Should we bother?" McKay asks, around a mouthful of stew. "If the Wraith are bearing down, it might be just as safe to keep them here."

"Well, better to make one strong stand at Atlantis than split our troops."

"Presuming we're planning on making a stand."

"What else can we do?" Sheppard asks, and this is familiar; there have been too many times in the past two years where he and Rodney have sat together and wondered what options remained, turning it over in their heads silently, trying to find another way out of whatever it is they're in. And at the end of this silence, they have always stood up and strapped it all on and gone to stand toe-to-toe with the enemy, side by side. Which is a lot to say about a man, that he can stand beside John Sheppard in defence of Atlantis. Sheppard doesn't cater to his own ego, but he is after all a soldier and a combat veteran, and McKay isn't. Well -- didn't used to be.

Sheppard is actually often baffled by the fact that McKay seems to tolerate him, given everything, and puts it down to his penchant for not talking, which means statistically he says fewer things that McKay thinks are stupid than everyone else does. Or perhaps it's necessity borne of ownership -- Beckett and Teyla might attend the senior staff meetings, but Rodney talks to the city and John protects the city and Elizabeth commands the city, so it's theirs, and that forms a tight, thick-knotted bond between the three of them.

"Do you think you can get her battle-ready?" he asks.

"How many miracles do you want from me?" McKay replies, but it's lacking its usual edge; it's weary and sad, and it sounds like he's feeling the Orion the way Sheppard feels Atlantis. The Orion is a tired soldier.

Sheppard prays that McKay isn't burning out. In terms of service to the city they could replace McKay if they had to, though they'd probably have to hire a team of three to do it; in terms of friendship, which is a word Sheppard doesn't use very often but has to now lest he use something a lot more dangerous, losing McKay would hurt like a fucking bitch.

"As many as you can manage," Sheppard answers, and offers McKay the brownie from his MRE.

"Well, since it's you," McKay says, his tone a trifle lighter, and accepts the food as his due.

***

Their first night back after what Rodney mentally terms The Big Space Adventure (because "We blew up a lot of stuff and got taken captive and hijacked a Wraith hive" was too long to say) everyone who had been onboard slept like the dead. The tightly-wound community of crewmen and scientists, a hundred and eighty-three all told, dispersed and found quarters and nothingness for a few hours, and it was good.

Rodney still remembers the throat-closing claustrophobia of the Daedalus as it lost oxygen. Even the air on the Wraith ship had been tainted with some smell that he could swear was the embodiment of hunger and desperation. Home in Atlantis the air still seems too thick inside, so he moves his bed out onto the small balcony and, heedless of allergens and bugs in the air, curls up to sleep in the ocean breeze.

He is surprised to find he misses Elizabeth, who is a long way away, just a handful of steps by Stargate but weeks by hyperdrive even if she left immediately after the news of the Wraith defeat -- which, he finds out in a briefing the next day, she didn't. And by the way, who put _Teyla_ in charge of Atlantis while Elizabeth was gone?

That evening he still feels restless, charged up with energy, unable to eat much at a time or sit still without fidgeting. Zelenka manages it somehow, moving smoothly through the labs as he works with steady hands and in so doing wins Rodney's Person I Dislike The Most award for the day (even Radek Zelenka can't triumph all the time).

He wanders the halls for a while, just for something to do, relearning the Ancient architecture after days aboard the Hive ship. There's something missing, something he hasn't done, but the diagnostics are all fine and there can't be anything else demanding his attention yet. He wishes for Elizabeth to help make it quiet, and because Atlantis is different without her presence, and a little bit because somehow Earth seems much more dangerous these days than the Pegasus Galaxy.

So he keeps wandering until he finds himself in the jumper bay, normally quiet and dark this time of night --

Except, and he isn't as surprised as he thought he'd be, there's Sheppard, elbows-deep in Jumper Two.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demands, standing on the rear hatch.

"Sewing a pinafore, what does it look like?" Sheppard answers, without looking up. "Glad you're here, toss me the corkscrewy thing. The three-quarters one."

Rodney crosses his arms.

"These are delicate, sensitive machines and -- "

"Rodney, give me the fucking corkscrewy thing, or I'll snap a crystal."

Rodney picks up the tool with a sigh and hands it over. "They have names, you know -- "

"And if I asked someone to pass me the Khathsaa Dethur, they'd look at me like I was nuts. _Thank_ you," Sheppard finishes, wedging it into place for a moment. It lights up, whirring softly. "Besides, you know what Khathsaa means in Ancient? _Corkscrewy thing._ Why are you here, anyway?"

Rodney is implacable and annoyed. He watches Sheppard remove the corkscrewy thing and replace the housing over the starboard rear crystals.

"Couldn't sleep either, huh?" Sheppard says conversationally.

"I definitely can't now that I know you're rummaging around in the jumper like it's a '57 Mustang," Rodney answers.

"She just wanted a little love." Sheppard pats the housing obscenely. Rodney prepares to pour forth on the sexualisation of inanimate objects when Sheppard finally glances up and tips him a grin.

"You are a sick man," he says instead.

"Probably. Hey, you have movies on your server space, yeah?"

"What?"

"Want to help me with something?"

Twenty minutes, some hasty rewiring, one minor electrical burn and a quickly negotiated flight-plan later, Jumper Two is cleared for departure. Rodney keeps up a steady stream of questions and self-aggrandising statements, mainly for Sheppard's benefit, until they are airborne. Until, in fact, they are in orbit.

"Now." Sheppard leans back and props his boots on the console, "Hook up that magic tablet of yours."

Rodney scowls as he plugs the tablet into the wires emerging from the central island. Sheppard glances at it, then at the screen, and nods sharply.

The navigational modules blink out one by one, and a frame of light appears in its place, projected against the blackness of their solar system. Rodney watches, startled, as Sheppard calls up his server folder on this large screen and flicks through the files.

"Buster Keaton," he murmurs, sounding amused. The files-list disappears and the opening strains of silent-film organ music fills the cockpit, and that is when the penny drops (way later than it should have, really).

"Oh my god," he says, leaning back and mirroring Sheppard's posture, boots propped on the console. "You're a _genius_ , Sheppard."

Grainy black-and-white film footage appears on the nav-screen, bigger than any Earth-made monitor anywhere in Atlantis. They are in geosynchronous orbit with a planet in another _galaxy_ and they suddenly have their own private cinema, projected onto the stars.

"I know," Sheppard says smugly, the light from the film washing his face in pale sepia.

"We gotta find a way to take popcorn next time."

"Shhh. Watch the movie."

"It's a _silent_ \-- "

"McKay, I swear to god..."

"Seriously, can I talk over the _silent movie?_ "

"What could you possibly have to say?"

"Oh, have you ever known me to not have something to say?"

"Is this a trick question?"

They bicker their way through _One Week_ and _The Electric House_ , tipped back comfortably in their chairs, before Sheppard reluctantly switches the screen off and turns the jumper towards Atlantis.

It isn't Elizabeth and talking and sex, but Elizabeth will be back soon, and he can wait. This is good; this is something _deserved_.

Sheppard's grin as they go their separate ways is suspiciously large, and normally Rodney would suspect him of planning something, but he can differentiate "planning" from "planned". He wonders how long Sheppard's been working on the film interface -- it would take programming and some physical work, so it had to have been at least a few weeks before the Big Space Adventure -- and if this is his version of what Rodney and Elizabeth have. Which is either really great or really depressing, depending on how you look at it.

***

Rodney sees Elizabeth briefly when she returns from Earth, disembarking from the Asgard ship that transported her (it doesn't linger, thankfully). He sees her a little less briefly in the staff meeting. And then suddenly he's in another part of the galaxy in a Hive ship, being fired on.

How do these things happen? Honestly.

But he takes pride in the fact that he is not the most incompetent code-talker known to man. Because in the briefing, when Sheppard was scrambling to save Elizabeth from having to actually say how glad she was to see them, Teyla piped up with _We feel the same way you do._

And the words just tumbled out. "Huh, she feels hungry too?" he said, and then he realised he just made a double-entendre that only Elizabeth would get, and she smiled at him.

So, you know. If he _doesn't_ get sucked into the vacuum of space as the Hive ship destroys them all, he's fairly confident he'll get lucky in the near future.

***

During the relative quiet that follows the destruction of the Wraith-Human colony, one of the offworld missions encounters the Nomads for the first time.

According to some translations Weir's been working on, the planet has a reasonable expectation of harbouring Ancient ruins and potentially a ZPM, though probably depleted. Instead, when they pass through the Stargate they find themselves in the middle of a noisy, chaotic encampment filled with children.

"Nomads," Teyla breathes.

The Nomads are legendary among the settled people of the Pegasus Galaxy, or so Teyla tells them; traders with no home, who travel from Gate to Gate as the safest way of avoiding cullings, never staying longer than a few days in one place. Having touched nearly every civilised planet at some point or other, they have left behind goods, stories, and children -- new blood being a scarce commodity in small communities. They are boisterous, good-spirited, and somewhat ruthless: their method of travel is to send a volunteer through the gate and close it, and hope that the address they entered at random was not a dangerous one. If it is, of course, the scout simply doesn't return; if it is safe, the scout redials the last planet, returns, and leads the Nomads through into a new world. They lose some this way, but not as many as they would to the Wraith.

There are two scientists on Atlantis who took double-degrees in ethnology and anthropology respectively, and they salivate at the prospect of speaking to the Nomads, particularly their storytellers. In return, the matriarch asks to seed most of the children and many of the adults on the relatively safe, agriculturally prosperous continent that the Athosians have settled. It seems a fair bargain, and the Athosians welcome the newcomers with open arms.

Transporting the crowds, with their carts and belongings, is an all-day task and every Jumper pilot with any skill is pressed into service, especially when McKay picks up a Hive ship bearing down on their current planet. A hundred and twelve people are hustled through the gate, then loaded into the jumpers and flown to the continent.

By the end of the day Sheppard's eyes are itchy-dry and his head is pounding from the repeated shuttle trips to the continent, along with the heavy work of helping disassemble the carts and haul the huge collections of junk (well, _he_ thinks it's junk) into and out of the Jumpers. He's glad to send the rest of the crew back to Atlantis, parking the Jumper and wondering if Teyla would mind awfully if he collapsed somewhere and didn't move for about two days.

Instead he finds that the Athosians, who even now don't have all that much to spare, have thrown a goddamn _party_.

A handful of his people have stayed on the continent, agreeing to rendesvous with him and fly out together -- McKay fascinated by Ancient tech he's ferreted out of the debris, Weir to speak with the Athosians about settlement issues, two or three Marines because you just can't be too careful, and both of the drooling ethno-anthro-whatevers.

One of the men brings him a bowl of food and he eats with his back against a tree, hardly conscious. He can see McKay deep in conversation with one of the newcomers, sipping thin Athosian beer, and Elizabeth nearby, speaking earnestly with some of the older women. He thinks perhaps he can sleep in the jumper for a while, since it looks like it's going to be a long night, and as soon as he's done eating he slinks back and stretches out on the floor, closing his eyes wearily.

When he wakes from half-drifting sleep there are voices: Elizabeth, too quiet to be understood, and then McKay, only slightly louder.

"Three new books," McKay is saying softly, urgently, happily and not entirely coherently, as if he's had a little too much fun at the bonfire. "How fast can you translate them?"

"We'll have to find out," Elizabeth answers, sounding much more coherent but also strangely breathless.

"Books by the Ancients," McKay repeats, slurring a little, and Sheppard grins. "Clues. Like a trail, leading us on. And five new devices to test out..."

Elizabeth laughs low. Sheppard frowns; it's not a sound he's heard often from her, and the silence following is unlike McKay at all. He pushes himself to his elbows and then his feet, silently, and makes his way down the rear hatch, hand resting on the rim as he looks for them.

He stops, hardly breathing, when he finally sees them; every muscle stills with the instinct not to be discovered.

McKay and Elizabeth are kissing, deep and long, with an ease of familiarity that says this is not some jubilant drunken indiscretion. In the dim light he can see the fall of Elizabeth's dark hair, one of McKay's hands threaded in it, the other possessive on the small of her back, both her hands on his shoulders. They're kissing pretty intently, hands tightening sometimes, McKay's mouth dipping to her throat and the soft place just below her ear. There's no chance she'll see him, turned as she is, but even as he thinks he should probably be disappearing McKay looks up long enough to catch his silhouette.

Blue eyes skate over his face, identify him, analyse him; and then McKay tips his head slightly and continues kissing their boss, Jesus, Elizabeth Weir, of all the fucking unlikely people --

Sheppard realises he's been quietly warned and then he does fade away, back inside the Jumper. McKay's privacy aside, Sheppard has to work with Elizabeth and this could get really awkward really fast.

He decides to stomp up and down on the metal grating a few times, cough, grunt, and generally make as much noise as possible before emerging again.

"Hey, McKay, is that you?" he calls, and when he puts his head around the side they are standing a decent distance apart, Elizabeth doing that thing with her hands she does, steepling them in front of her and flexing her elbows. "Hey."

"John," Elizabeth says. "We were just coming to see if you were ready to fly back."

"I'm in no condition," McKay adds, then bites his lip.

"Yep," Sheppard says briefly. "Everyone else rounded up?"

"Just us, they're staying," McKay blurts.

"All right then. Let's go," Sheppard replies easily, and steels himself for one more flight before he can go to his quarters and digest this and sleep, sweet sleep.

But all of a sudden, in his tired brain, things click into place -- that one time he met Elizabeth coming out of McKay's quarters, which she brushed off as an early-morning meeting. The fact that she touches McKay a lot and McKay tolerates it, which Sheppard always thought was pretty weird. The fact that McKay is unusually civil to her, because it's not like he's respected any other authority figure he's ever encountered.

Jesus, they must have been together for _months_. He thought McKay would tell him shit like this. McKay's not supposed to be good at keeping secrets or lying, and also, hello, teammates. He invented a whole new way of viewing movies, in orbit, just to show it to McKay. They're supposed to be friends.

He casts a sidelong look at McKay, in the copilot's chair, and then over his shoulder where Elizabeth is seated at one of the rear stations. Glances back at McKay, who cuts his eyes to the side and looks deeply unsettled.

"Not to harsh your buzz or anything," Sheppard drawls slowly, "but I've got some data from the Travellers that we should go over tomorrow. Ancient tech stuff," he adds, as Elizabeth opens her mouth. "You want dibs, McKay?"

"What kind of stuff?" McKay asks, and he sure is slow on the uptake for someone who just forced Sheppard to do some very ingenious subterfuge.

"I said, tech stuff, how much of that beer did you have? Listen, sleep it off, I'll see you in the mess. Oh nine hundred? I can brief you then."

"Oh -- oh right. Of course." McKay replies, catching on. "Oh nine hundred."

Sheppard wishes he was the kind of guy who would vengefully knock everyone around during landing, but he isn't, so he puts the Jumper down perfectly and lets McKay stagger off to bed (god, bed, probably with Elizabeth, what the hell) while he goes over the post-flight checklist. By the time he hits his own quarters he's weaving a little himself and even with the confused, injured feeling in his mind, it isn't long before he's asleep.

***

The Author now presents a scene, with translations.

There are pancakes for breakfast, a rare treat, and Sheppard picks at his while Rodney cuts his into bite-sizes and makes little sandwiches with the pancakes and the rubbery sausage patties the mess is serving. Neither of them talk, Sheppard because he's trying to figure out what to say and McKay because he hasn't finished his coffee yet.

There's nothing like the direct approach, really, so Sheppard waits until McKay's mouth is full and then says, "So. Elizabeth."

_See, I'm not an idiot, and after last night I'm pretty much not going to be able to cope with this without a little more information. So please clue me in, because I'm kind of confused over how I should feel that you're in a relationship with our boss._

McKay chews, pauses, looks around.

"Sex," he says, succinctly.

_It's this thing we started, when either of us feels like we can't really deal, or we're excited, or we need someone to tell us that we're not complete freaks, or when one or both of us have almost died. But I don't think she's really interested in a relationship and I know I'm not, and she's smart but in a totally different way from me and possibly not really on the same plane as me, so conversation is hard a lot of the time. I'm pretty sure we're still not dating. Or at least as much as we've said, we're not dating. It's not a big deal._

(Rodney McKay can fit a lot of meaning into two consonants and a vowel.)

"Sex?" Sheppard asks.

_Oh, well. Okay, that's a relief, that's just fuckbuddies, I can deal with that. Actually, that's kind of awesome and I am jealous, because my social skills are not as great as you think they are and women who've known me for more than six hours tend to see that. Also, it's really hard to start anything with any of the guys on Atlantis, I don't know if you've noticed._

"That's pretty much it, yup." McKay shovels another huge bite into his mouth.

_It's good, but I have this deep down feeling that it's also really messed up._

"And the Jumper thing, last night."

_You could have warned me. Also, you could have told me when it started, like people are supposed to tell their friends, especially their friends who are also their colleagues under the boss you're sleeping with._

"Yeah, that's...not something that happens all the time."

_It's not a big deal, really. I mean if it were I would have told you. Sorry about that._

"So...?"

_Are you pissed that I found out? Because it's pretty much your fault, but if you were pissed that I found out I could make some kind of apologetic gesture so that things don't change, because I suck at this whole making friends thing._

"Yeah, whatever."

_We're cool._

***

He tries to stop thinking about it, because McKay has said in no uncertain terms that it's not a big deal. Still, it's hard; he thinks about whether he could do that with someone, the casual thing, but he never had much luck being casual about sex. Either he gets too intense or they do or (once, memorably) he gets accused of being a sociopathic closet case.

He thinks about what McKay must have felt seeing Elizabeth on the scanner table, body infected by nanites and slowly shutting down. He thinks about McKay's half-swallowed protest when Elizabeth voluntarily let a Replicator touch her. He thinks about how many morning briefings they've held, where McKay and Elizabeth must have just come from the same bed. He thinks about trying to kill off the brain cells that are making him think about this.

He's not jealous. He has no desire to sleep with Elizabeth and as far as he had known, until a few days ago, he and McKay had shared the same respectful disaffect concerning her. That's out the window now, but...

Well, the way he sees it is, Rodney is his responsibility -- one of many, but his -- and clearly if missions where they don't get tied up (and sometimes do) and video games and films in their offtime and meals together aren't enough, then Rodney should definitely be doing what he needs to do in order not to become a high-strung reclusive neurotic lunatic. If Weir can give him some...thing he needs, then it's none of John's business.

But do they really have to have sex?

Because if that's all Rodney needs, John Sheppard is never unobliging.

Salvation comes in the unlikely form of Carson Beckett, who slumps down on the bench across from him in the mess late one evening, looking tired and gulping juice. John eyeballs him for a while, then realises he should probably say something polite.

"Long day?"

"You wouldn't believe," Carson answers, poking at his food investigatively before taking a bite. "I don't mind the patch-up jobs or having to hybridise Ancient medical technology just to be able to comprehend the readouts. It's the bloody secret-keeping."

"Oh, that thing. You mean _confidentiality?_ " he asks.

"Do you know what I've been told under seal of that word?" Carson replies. "Of course you don't, because I can't tell you. And let me say that if I had wanted to hear confession and never get shagged I would have been a priest."

"I thought you and Cadman..."

"Well, it's not so easy, is it? We're on the outs right now, because I was too busy putting pressure-bandages on Ronon to pay sufficient attention, and also even when we're not, we're never off-shift at the same time."

"Huh," John considers. "She's one of mine. I could fix that for you."

"Isn't that favouritism?"

"Yup," John replies, taking a bite. Carson looks pathetically grateful. "Hey, here's a question."

"Oh god..."

"So, if I told you something...biological, about someone who wasn't me, is that still covered? Confidentially?"

The other man frowns, and then looks him in the eye. "Colonel Sheppard, do you have gossip?"

"That's just it -- it isn't gossip. It's _confidential_."

"You are aware that right now you are a thirteen-year-old girl inhabiting the body of an Air Force officer." Carson lets him twist for a few seconds, then grins. "Listen, even if it weren't, do you think I can't keep a secret? I keep more secrets than anyone on Atlantis. Believe me, I could be making millions in blackmail."

"Guess who's sleeping with who."

"Whom," Carson corrects absently. "Is this going to be a tale of your sexual exploits?"

"It's not about me. I don't have exploits!"

"Mm-hm." Carson gestures with his fork. "Tell on, then."

"It's about McKay."

"Oh really now," Carson leans in close. "I cannot confirm or deny such things, Colonel."

"You don't _have_ to confirm or deny, I know he's sleeping with someone. And I know who."

"Is it that Katie girl? I wouldn't have thought -- "

"No." John adopts an air of smug, knowledgeable superiority. His expression doesn't actually change, but he's good at auras.

"All right, okay, secret kept forever. Who?"

"Elizabeth."

Carson's jaw drops. "You're joking. You're not joking. Are you joking? Him? And her? For -- Jesus, McKay and _Elizabeth?_ "

It's so good to have the weight of that secret off his shoulders that he magnanimously ignores Carson's continued implications that McKay could never get anyone that hot in a million years.

***

In the entire time that McKay's sister is on board, Elizabeth only has one conversation with her that isn't about the project. It's a shame; she suspects she'd like Jeannie, but time and responsibility conspire against her. When they do encounter each other, it's Jeannie's last morning on Atlantis before the Daedalus departs.

"You're awake early," Jeannie says, pouring herself a cup of coffee -- not like Rodney takes his, black and preferably industrial-strength, but with cream and sugar. "These last few days...made me wonder if anyone ever sleeps around here."

"Short bursts, and only between major catastrophes," Elizabeth answers with a smile. "Ready for your return trip?"

"Yeah. Um. Sorry about killing your ZPM, by the way," Jeannie says hesitantly. ZPM, not ZedPM; she doesn't have Rodney's ostentatious adherence to cultural quirks, and maybe Elizabeth should stop comparing Jeannie and her brother now.

"The project was approved by command, and you did what you had to. Sit with me?" Elizabeth invites, seating herself at one of the smaller mess tables and gesturing to the other chair.

"Rodney said you weren't very happy about it." Jeannie sits hesitantly, staring at her coffee cup.

"It's my job to shout him into submission sometimes," she answers with a grin. "He gets over it quickly. You and he spoke, then?"

"We sorted some things out."

"That's good." Elizabeth sips her coffee, trying to think what else she can possibly say to the incredibly bright, incredibly nervous young woman sitting across from her. Any advice she could give about Rodney, Jeannie undoubtedly already knows, and now she's going back to a normal life on Earth so there's not much to say about Atlantis, really.

"Can I ask you something?" Jeannie says suddenly. "About my brother. Free pass to not answer if you like."

"Certainly," Elizabeth replies.

"He just seems...he's different. I mean, yeah, four years, changes people, but...I never saw him this happy, before, and it's not like he's even been all that happy since I've been here. People like him here," she adds conspiratorially, as if this is the shock of the century. "His team likes him. I'm used to people giving me pitying looks when they find out I'm his sister, and kicking him under the table a lot."

"And you don't understand why?"

"No, I understand that, I guess, this place is...wow. You know? But..." she describes a shape in the air, hands moving like Rodney's would, sketching a figure only she knows the meaning of. "He also seems really lonely. I just...does he...have someone here?"

Which is the question, isn't it.

"He has friends," Elizabeth says slowly. "But that's not what you're asking."

"No. I just thought maybe...him and Colonel Sheppard? I know, I know, US military, don't ask, blah blah, but they seem...close."

Elizabeth blinks.

"No, I don't think so," she says, considering it. "John is a good friend, he'd die for Rodney and I think Rodney would die for him, but...Rodney gets by as best he can out here. We all do. Sometimes that means paying loneliness in return for the rest. We think it's worth it. I know he does."

Jeannie nods in that half-sideways way she has, without looking up.

"Thank you for letting me see all this, Dr. Weir," she says. "The Daedalus will be leaving soon, I'd better go."

"It was a pleasure having you here," Elizabeth says, and means it. "You even got Rodney to keep his mouth shut for minutes at a time."

She laughs, and that's how Elizabeth remembers her when she thinks about Jeannie's visit; eyes like Rodney's, a laugh thrown over her shoulder as she leaves, a shy grin on her face.

Elizabeth can't help the comparisons, but Jeannie is certainly her own woman. Then again, she's come to expect nothing less from a McKay.

That night Rodney shows up at her door, all but pleading for someone to show him he's still him, that there is something that is entirely his and not his sister's or his double's. And, being almost certain that she would not touch his alternate with a ten foot pole (there's something inherently untrustworthy about his charismatic self-assurance), she kisses him and takes him to bed to prove it to him.

"I did warn you when it was my turn to have a breakdown it'd be spectacular," he says against her skin, kissing up along the side of her throat as they lie together afterwards. "How many other men in this galaxy do you think have had identity crises over meeting themeselves in the hallway?"

She laughs and tugs on his short, sleek hair. "Not many."

***

Time passes. There is a quiet period, at least for Elizabeth, though McKay regularly comes back from missions with scrapes and stunner burns and other traumas that accompany offworld travel. She negotiates a handful of trade agreements and even mediates a treaty between two feuding planets, who have been using each others' Stargates to raid villages in the decades since the last Wraith cullings. Now there's a treaty and an exchange of goods as a peace-making gesture. It's good to be making peace again, instead of scrambling for survival and fighting a war.

She returns, flush with success, and though there were already toasts and lauds back on-planet there are also toasts in Atlantis -- Sheppard produces a bottle of highly-prized champagne and they celebrate in the gateroom, in front of the silent, watchful Stargate.

"Elizabeth Weir," Beckett says, as McKay pours the champagne into plastic cups (wine glasses are still a little hard to come by out here).

"Doctor Elizabeth Weir," Sheppard corrects, lifting his cup to touch it to Teyla's.

"To a little peace in a big galaxy," Elizabeth says, and they drink. McKay tips her a wink over the edge of his cup. "All right, enough celebrating my genius," she adds, when the cups are drained. "Back to work. I have a mission report to write, and I'll want the senior staff in the conference room for evening debriefing."

"Already?" McKay asks, tilting his head. She's reminded starkly of Jeannie for a second.

"Well, I might take a hot shower first," she admits.

Ten minutes later, McKay's head is resting on her thigh, lips grazing the sensitive skin, and she's breathless and writhing and god, he talks enough that of course he's good at this but _honestly_.

He lifts himself up a little, presses his face to her stomach, huffs warm air over her skin.

"Hot shower, hm?" he asks, kissing just below her ribcage as one of his hands undoes the trousers he's still wearing, shoves them down. He's talented that way.

"Hey, _you_ came _here_ ," she laughs, then gasps as he laps across one nipple.

"I was worried about you," he mumbles into her skin.

"Worried, Rodney?"

"You were offworld. I was stuck here. Worried," he elaborates, one hand hitching her thigh over his hip.

"Mmm, so that's why you're -- " his other hand slides inside her, moving deftly, almost clinically, as if he were writing code or riding the power mix on the generators.

"No," he says, angling his hips against hers, his erection a hot hard pulse on her skin. His hand drops away and he nips her collarbone, pulling her up so that they fit, so that he's inside her, and pleasure barely flickers across his face. He's watching her as if she's something wonderful.

"Why?" she asks, trying to keep to the slow rhythm he's setting, so unlike McKay.

"You were pleased," he says. He kisses her, a small moan in her mouth. "I was pleased for you. Proud -- mmm -- proud of you."

Reality tips sideways for a minute, because they are here together and for once it's not the adrenaline-fueled result of nearly dying or the desperation of loneliness and command. He's celebrating with her, she realises, their entire -- arrangement, relationship, whatever this is -- turning itself over in an instant. Not because they lived, but because they made something new. She made something new.

She begs a little shamelessly as the realisation washes over her but he holds her head in his hands and kisses her and refuses to move any faster. After a few moments she stops trying to fight it, and something clicks into place and all of a sudden it's slow, slow and langourous, late-afternoon light and pleasure and there's no hurry. It feels like hours are passing, locked up this way, she did this, she stopped people dying, and oh god --

Orgasm takes her completely by surprise, because she thought they had forever and suddenly she's arching and moaning still low and slow and he's with her, following her, drinking her in.

"See?" McKay says smugly, sliding away and propping himself on one elbow, still leaning over to kiss her. "Good, huh?"

"Egotist," she manages, drifting in the afterglow. He tastes like champagne still. This is new and a little frightening, but she'll examine it later if she has to.

"Hot shower," he reminds her, eyes closing, easing down onto the bed. "Dinner and debriefing...h'm..."

They sleep for a little while, or half-sleep anyway, hands interlaced over her hip, and it's good. Life is good.

Which means it can't possibly last.

***

The Ancients come. They take her city from her, ruthlessly, without even the courtesy of speaking to her about it themselves. They take away her city.

Sheppard is assigned to new offworld teams at SGC where Beckett works in the base hospital patching his wounds and McKay ships out to Area 51, and she hides in an apartment nearby and realises that she is spiralling downwards.

McKay calls often, though they begin to taper off after the first two weeks when she doesn't return them. She always means to, his calls and Carson's both. She writes e-mails trying to explain, but never sends them. Often they're jointly addressed to McKay and Sheppard, sometimes just to Sheppard, rarely just to McKay. Sometimes she tries to write to McKay about how it felt to make love slowly in the afternoon sunlight the day she concluded the treaty, but words don't come.

When Carson shows up at her door one day she realises that she's in trouble, that what she's doing is not resting but -- sulking, or perhaps grieving. He tempts her out with the promise of a meal, and better, the promise of Sheppard and McKay as well. McKay gripes about the low level of stress on his job, Carson gripes about being a patch-up boy for broken limbs and scraped elbows. Sheppard doesn't gripe, even about boring offworld missions, just makes that face he makes where he's miserable and trying to hide it.

McKay's eyes track her hands, flick up occasionally to her mouth, and she sees the worry in his face. They never really settled anything, but then there wasn't anything to settle. They don't need each other anymore, not here on safe, boring Earth.

She wishes for Atlantis with all her heart, and when their cellphones ring as she's getting up to leave she wonders if the universe does grant wishes. It extracts a toll, perhaps, but in the cramped Jumper, smelling of sweat and fear and preparing to face down the Replicators with inadequate weaponry, she realises that it's worth it. She'd happily die for Atlantis, and it looks like she might get that wish too.

Adrenaline makes the next hours cloudy but when it clears she realises she hasn't died for Atlantis. She has killed, killed a lot of people (Replicators, anyway), and maybe that'll fit into her life somehow later but for now Atlantis belongs to them again.

The gateroom is _trashed_ , McKay makes good bombs when he puts his mind to it, but the smoke-smudged walls and the broken glass have never looked so good. And there are the boys -- Carson, McKay, Sheppard -- waiting to hear her verdict from O'Neill.

"We're staying," she says, when she reaches the bottom of the steps. "Atlantis is still ours."

Sheppard covers his face with his hands and slides down to the floor, breathing deeply, body relaxing as he sprawls flat on the ground. She's never seen him show more emotion than in that moment. Carson smiles and then bites his lip, looking up and around at the wreckage that belongs to them once more.

McKay heaves one huge breath and steps forward swiftly and kisses her before she can stop him, hands cupping her face, tongue warm against her teeth, and when did she start kissing him back?

There's a cough behind her. She turns to see Carson and Sheppard watching them. Sheppard turns his face back up to stare at the ceiling and gestures weakly with one hand.

"I already knew, keep going if you want," he says.

"Erm. I did too," Carson adds sheepishly. She looks at McKay accusingly, but he's turned to Beckett. "What?" the doctor protests. "Sheppard told me."

" _Confidentially!_ " Sheppard growls.

"I am so going to find some way to kick your ass later," McKay says to Sheppard, and turns back to her and kisses her again, because they can, because this belongs to them. It is one perfect moment, and then he presses his forehead to hers (she can't help thinking of the Athosians) and steps back.

"Well, crap," he announces, looking around and rubbing his hands. "Damage control. Tablet is...great, still functioning. Everything else on this godforsaken floating junk heap is broken." A thought seems to hit him. "Oooh. Three ZedPMs. Sheppard, get off your ass, I'm going to need lightswitch boy for this."

"Go fuck yourself, McKay," Sheppard replies amicably.

"Oh? What are _you_ going to do?"

"Sleep," Sheppard answers, closing his eyes. "Right here. Home," he adds. Carson seats himself on the stairs.

"Can I have two minutes to stop from stroking out?" he asks plaintively. McKay makes a show of setting his watch.

"Go," Elizabeth says, rubbing his arm. "Start fixing what you can."

McKay wanders off, muttering to himself about ungrateful Air Force Colonels and already at work on the tablet, checking systems, seeing what can be salvaged. She sits next to Carson, leans lightly against his shoulder.

"Hey," Sheppard says sleepily, from the Gateroom floor. "What say we make a deal."

"What kind of deal?" Carson asks.

"Nobody takes our city away from us ever again."

"Deal," Elizabeth says softly.

***

Sheppard sometimes talks to Atlantis. He has not yet realised that Atlantis is listening.

Somewhere in the Ancient database, in the partitioned part set aside for these new residents, there is a file of recordings taken in John Sheppard's quarters, without his permission but with the perfect assurance that he did _mean_ to talk to the city.

One of them reads:

_Today: blew up a bunch of machine-people and stole their ZPMs. They stole our city first, so hell with them. Also, experienced momentary urge to kill Elizabeth Weir. Urge passing, decided to sleep in Gateroom. Floor incredibly uncomfortable._

***

Rodney McKay wrote the mathematical formula for Ascention. It's simple and quite beautiful:

S > 95 ^ (0 A, where:

S := percentage of synaptic connection.  
H := Electroencephalogram measurement of Hertz activity in the brain.  
A := Ascention.

He's having a few issues explaining this to the Athosians, however.

Teyla talked him into visiting the mainland for dinner and trying to talk to her people, because there are a handful of Athosians who are interested in the study of Ascention (Sheppard calls them the White Light Elks Lodge when Teyla's not listening) and McKay now knows a lot about it.

It's not exactly easy going, though. For one thing, any city visitors are cause for interest and attention from the settlement's children, and apparently they have short memories or they would know better by now than to come within ten feet of him. Sticky, noisy little bastards.

For another, the Athosians aren't grasping the concepts he's laying down. It's not that they're not smart people, just that it's hard to explain biochemistry to someone who doesn't know what _electricity_ is.

He really is trying to be patient. He's putting effort into not snapping or snarling or being mean, but as a test of his newly-established self-control it's difficult and exhausting. Sheppard, meanwhile, is not doing anything to help; instead he's encouraging the children to surround them, because he's sitting at the far end of the table and engaging in what he calls Civilian Outreach. In reality this involves distributing gum, sweets, and cheap trinkets to the kids, and charming lazy smiles to their mothers. Whenever McKay sees him giving out sticks of gum he can't help but think of footage from Afghanistan and Iraq, of soldiers there doing the same.

After two hours of laborious explanation of the way a brain actually functions on a cellular, chemical level, one of the Athosians remarks that it seems very clinical, considering how the Ancients pursued enlightenment, and Rodney gives up for the night. He manages to say "Okay, that's enough, I'll try again later" instead of "You are all hopeless idiots and deserve to die horribly", which he counts a significant moral victory. He's congratulating himself as Sheppard sends the mob of children off somewhere and drifts over to him.

"So, how'd it go?" he asks, knowing full well how it went.

"Any time you want to Ascend and leave behind your existence of tormenting me, go right ahead," McKay answers. Sheppard bumps his shoulder, grinning.

"Hey, Altantis wasn't built in a day. Without machines, this whole process takes a little longer."

"A lot longer, and I'm not sure why I'm catering to the whims of idiots who think Ascention's so great in the first place."

"Favour to Teyla."

"Right. Favour to Teyla." McKay sighs. "I miss being super-evolved, though."

"You were kind of a dick about it."

"I _know_ that."

"Though if we could get you up to about eighty-eight percent and keep you there, you were all right at eighty-eight percent."

McKay turns his head to look at him, surprised. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, you were all...friendly and insightful and stuff. Actually it was really creepy," Sheppard amends thoughtfully. "But, you know. If you had to be super-evolved, the least you could do was be polite about it."

"I'm positive all this character growth can't be good for me."

Sheppard chuckles, a rare sound. "Probably not. You ready to head back?"

They walk back to the Jumper, Sheppard waving to various people with that odd mixture of distant friendliness and total confusion that he so often shows when people appear to like him. McKay knows, like he knows his formulas were important though now he can't understand them, that he tried to get a read on Sheppard the minute he found he could hear thoughts. He thinks at some point he must have picked something up, but when he spools his mind back it comes out blurred, like the formulas. All he remembers are the early attempts, which always yielded the same results:

_Sheppard, John. Lieutenant Colonel, US Air Force. 31-415-926._

Name, rank, and serial number. And since Sheppard is not exactly the kind to be obsessed by his own military status, that means he was trying not to think of something else.

McKay wonders why.

***

Another entry in Sheppard's unconsciously-kept diary of the city reads:

_Today: Carson died. We're going back to Earth with the body._

_Fuck._

***

John's read in some journal somewhere that funerals make people want to have sex to affirm that they're still alive. This, like most psychiatry, is: woolly thinking in the extreme and also: Bullshit. He's never felt less like having anything approaching sex in his entire life.

They're all suffering delayed-reactions on Earth, because it doesn't seem real -- Earth, that is. John walks through the streets and looks up at planes flying overhead and can't shake the feeling that nothing outside of Atlantis really exists anymore. He can't feel the pavement under his feet thrumming to him, can't open doors by thinking about it, can't talk to any of the buildings the way he talks to Atlantis, has no interest in flying anything that doesn't respond to the touch of his mind. _And_ the food is all wrong.

If it weren't for McKay and Carson last time, calling to bitch and grabbing meals with him and distracting him, he probably would have spent his days on Earth during the Ancient Occupation drifting, the way Elizabeth had.

Carson is dead.

When they return to Atlantis he thinks maybe he can start to process Carson's death if he wants, but he doesn't. In the gateroom they're met with respectful silence and McKay practically bolts away -- away from him, away from them, away from everyone. John has nothing better to do, and many worse things he doesn't want to do; he follows McKay on the sensors, watching the little blue dot as it goes further and further out, apparently heading down one of the piers, towards the Daedalus' landing pad.

John falls asleep sitting up for a little while, watching the sensors, and nobody in the Gateroom wakes him. The constant time-zone hopping has exhausted the pallbearers as much as the effort of keeping it together for Beckett's family, and everyone understands.

When he wakes again, there's a lifesign in McKay's quarters. He leaves before the second one appears, and by the time he's down in the Staff Quarters he isn't even thinking, just blindly seeking.

So when the door opens without his consciously willing it open, he walks in; past the sparse living room (that rarely is lived in, McKay's messes are all down in the labs) and up to the open bedroom door. Long habit makes him stealthy; he puts his head in and sees McKay asleep on his bed, propped against the glass wall at the head. Elizabeth is curled on her side, head on his chest, both of them still in uniform, still wearing their shoes.

He wants, hungrily, he wants to be a part of that comfort. And as if this hunger is a loud physical thing, McKay stirs, opens his eyes.

They stare at each other for a while before McKay jerks his head slightly, an invitation. John seats himself on the edge of the bed, leaning away from them, not touching either of them, not even Elizabeth's boots.

"She was tired," McKay says softly.

"We all are."

"Yeah." A long silence. "Sheppard."

John looks up at him and McKay gestures with the hand not crooked around Elizabeth's shoulders, a flick of fingers opening wide this thing to him. He takes half the invitation, leaning back, lying across the foot of the bed, feet still on the floor. One of McKay's boots toes his shoulder in a silent chide -- _not there, come here_ \-- but John can't quite take that much. He'll only be here for a minute or two, anyway; he has work to do.

"Mm. Have it your way," McKay says, and drifts off again.

***

When Elizabeth wakes, she finds herself all but buried in McKay's side, her knees tucked up against his hip, fingers twined in his shirt. There's something heavy on her legs, as well, which turns out to be John Sheppard's arm.

He's curled into an almost impossibly tight ball, sleeping at their feet like some kind of oversized dog. One arm is thrown over her legs and his cheek is pressed into McKay's trousers just below the knee. She wouldn't have imagined you could fit three people on this bed, especially when the other two are McKay and Sheppard.

She worries sometimes that they draw in on themselves too much, the three of them. Her own fault probably, for allowing this thing with McKay to continue, because whether terrifying things like love are a factor it does bond you tightly to someone. But it's hard, very hard, not to reach out to those who understand best.

The city needs her, she thinks, and so she pulls gently out from under Sheppard's arm (he must be exhausted if he doesn't even stir) and puts on her uniform jacket and leaves them there. They'll look after each other.

It's what they do.


	4. Chapter 4

In Antarctica -- hell, in most of the places he's lived -- it was really hard to get any privacy, and not just because it was an essentially military operation. You couldn't often go outside and all the buildings were designed to centralise heating, to make the most efficient use of any insulation that existed. Leisure rooms were small and often full of people, and the staff quarters had thin walls.

Atlantis is so different. Every few feet, it seems like, there's an alcove or a bench or a small platform up a flight of stairs where you can steal a few minutes' peace. In addition there are enormous unexplored areas of the city, dark hallways and rooms to discover, places to hide. With Senior Staff clearance and an ATA gene there's almost nowhere you can't go. It's been years, now, but he never gets tired of this.

John spelunks in Atlantis in his spare time, because it's quiet and cool and dark, and you never know what you might find. Twice in the past year alone he's returned from his explorations with toys for McKay -- one that they're still arguing over the function of, another that looks like a jeweler's glass but works like a high-quality, high-magnification microscope.

Also, it never hurts to know your way around the outskirts of Atlantis. You might have to break in or blow something up one day. It's been known to happen.

He's deep in one of the sub-levels, where the air is cold because the room is technically under water, when he stumbles across it. The floor is silty and filled with debris where the water drained, and under a heap of what looks like dried crustacean bones there's a jagged edge sticking out. He toes it with his shoe, curious; the bones crumble away and suddenly he's looking at the translucent dun-maroon of a ZPM.

He crouches and brushes the rest of the debris away, unearthing it, leaving jagged press-patterns in the dried dirt as he pulls it up. It flickers briefly in his hands, like a momentary heartbeat.

"I know how you feel," he murmurs, stroking it gently, trying to get it to flare again, but it's very clearly dead. If it weren't, McKay would have found it on the sensors long ago.

"Colonel?" his radio crackles in his ear, Elizabeth's voice crisp.

"Here," he replies.

"We just picked up a brief energy spike in an uninhabited area of the city. Are you down there?"

"Oh -- yeah," he says, making up his mind in an instant. They have several drained ZPMs; they hardly need one more, and it'd crush McKay to know there was just this stupid fucking _shell_. "Flicking some lightswitches, that's all."

"Be careful, John."

"Yes ma'am. Sheppard out," he says, and sighs, placing the ZPM's lifeless husk back in the silt. He crunches onwards over the bones of whatever-they-were.

He's always finding dead things.

He comes up through a distant access hatch an hour later, into the sun and the sharp-crisp-salt wind that always seems to be blowing this far from the heart of the city. Coming back is almost as good as going down in the first place. The ache when the sunlight hits his dilated pupils is pleasurable, like walking out of a matinee film.

He's read enough trash pop fiction and seen enough movies about the Alamo to have an idea in his mind of what it's like to live on an isolated garrison, in hostile territory and with constantly endangered resources. What the books couldn't convey was the wild freedom of it, how even loneliness is tinged with something sharper, a sense of pride and strength. He turns to look at his city from the pier, the barest echoes of his dreams in his mind, and lets the wind blow past and through him until he's shivering.

He has killed and shed blood and lost friends and comrades to the city, and he's proud. Something like this is worth it. Let Elizabeth make trades and treaties, let Rodney play pretty games with the universe; he's proud to be the watchdog. Dulce et decorum est: it is sweet and honourable to bleed in defence of Atlantis.

_Mine, mine, mine_ , comes the chant. He isn't sure if he's saying it to Atlantis or Atlantis is saying it to him.

At dinner that night, McKay tosses his tablet across the table. There's an energy reading on the display, which means nothing to John but which McKay can no doubt read like a billboard, the signature of a dying ZPM.

"Flicking lightswitches, huh?" he says.

"It was dead," John answers dully.

"How do you -- "

"I think I know, McKay."

When he looks up there's an odd kindness in McKay's face, something not-often-seen but more common in the past year.

"Can I come with you next time?" McKay asks, which defeats the point -- escape -- but at the same time he can see them already, sifting through junk in the sub-levels, McKay chattering nonstop as two flashlight beams play over the walls.

"It's boring," he answers, and then offhandedly, "But, if you want to."

***

What happens next proves to John that he is an ordinary person unblessed by a special relationship with the vindictive forces of the universe, and Rodney McKay is in fact a self-propelled trouble magnet.

On their first spelunking expedition together, McKay bitches about the insanity of this activity in general and then about the inconvenience of all the sandy silt (once mud) they have to stumble over, which somehow segues into a monologue on Canadian beaches and the comparative quality of Toronto's waterfront and the Atlantean mainland, with side commentary regarding Centre Island and St. Lawrence Market, neither of which John has ever heard of. For once he lets McKay talk himself out, voice echoing where nobody's spoken in thousands of years, gradually slowing and eventually, to John's immense surprise, stopping. After that they pick their way over crunching dried sea-weed and more silt in companionable silence.

At least until the bats.

In three years of exploration in the belly of Atlantis he's never once encountered something alive, save for a brief glimpse of one of Rodney's "whales" through the curving glass wall of a large chamber. His first time out with McKay, giant angry carnivorous bats show up. If that isn't an indication of which one of them is cursed, he doesn't know what is.

McKay curses as they run, popping the back off a scanner, stumbling a little as John clears a miniature sandbar behind him. He catches McKay's elbow, steadies them both, and keeps going.

"How the hell did they get down here?" he hisses.

"Can't talk, saving our lives," McKay retorts, stripping a wire with his teeth, bolting left and, since John's still holding onto his arm, dragging John along.

"Save our lives faster!"

"No, I thought I'd take my fucking time!"

John shoves him forward and pulls his gun with one smooth move, turning to fire at the things. There are three of them, large but with narrow, long wings that make them naturals to dive and swoop through the passages.

"Sheppard!" McKay calls. "Bolt-door!"

John tumbles backwards, still firing, flips and runs as one of the bat-things crashes into a wall. He dives through the door and clutches the edge, helping McKay slide it shut and drive the bolts home. On the other side, there's the sound of claws on metal.

"Those are new," John observes, leaning against the door. McKay is still rewiring something in the guts of the scanner.

"Probably not," he grunts as he works. "They're emitting a low-frequency pulse that's apparently jamming the sensors on these levels."

"Like sonar?"

"Yes, except _not at all_. It's electromagnetic as well as sub-audible. They probably got in sometime after Atlantis rose. They might hunt on the mainland, but I bet the ones here are cannibals. I really love my imagination sometimes," McKay adds with a sigh. Something clicks in the scanner, and he holds it up. "Look! Instant bat-jammer."

"Yeah?"

"Just have to find the right frequency..." McKay's face tightens in concentration. "There."

Then he holds it out to John. "Want to push the button?"

John doesn't take the scanner, just cups one hand over McKay's on the underside, hovers the other hand over the top, and taps the screen where indicated. The scrabbling abruptly stops. McKay is looking down at the scanner, but his head is cocked; he's listening for movement.

John's radio makes them both jump. "Colonel, this is Weir."

"Go ahead," he says, removing his hands and tapping his earpiece.

"We're suddenly picking up dozens of non-human life-signs in your area. What the hell are you doing down there?"

"Giant carnivorous bats!" McKay calls, working the bolts on the door. John stands at the edge, pushing the barrel of his pistol through the door as it opens. "Tell her about the giant bats!"

"All bats are carnivorous, they eat insects," John retorts.

"That makes them insectivores! These are carnivores! They eat meat! We're _made_ of meat!"

"Did he just say _carnivorous bats_?" Weir asks, amusement and concern about equal in her tone.

"Carnivorous sensor-jamming bats," John confirms. "We've got it under control. McKay jammed them back."

They swing the door open wider; all three creatures are collapsed on the ground, unconscious, wings tucked over their heads.

"Uh, so, we're going to backtrack a little, seal off this level, and call it a day until I can come back with some Marines," he continues. "Sheppard out."

"This galaxy is trying to kill us," McKay mutters, carefully picking his way around the bodies.

"Nah," John says, keeping his gun trained on them as McKay starts up an access ladder.

"I'm sorry, giant bats were chasing me, may have affected my hearing. Do you _not_ think Pegasus is out to get us?"

"Nope," John says cheerfully, starting up the ladder after him. "I think it's out to get _you_."

"Oh that's very comforting, thanks."

"Relax, McKay," John says, and it's the same pride he feels about guarding Atlantis when he adds, "I got you covered."

***

If you slather on some barbecue sauce and give it about half an hour on a hot grill, it turns out there's pretty good eating on a giant carnivorous potentially cannibalistic alien bat.

Rodney refuses to eat anything which once attempted to eat him, until the fifth or sixth time Sheppard distractingly licks sauce off his fingers. At this point he reluctantly takes the other half of Sheppard's GCBLT (Giant Carnivorous Bat, Lettuce, and Tomato) and then, much less reluctantly, goes for one of his own.

***

"So, you're dating Katie Brown, but not sleeping with her," Sheppard says.

"Well, for a given value of dating," Rodney replies, very aware that he sounds uncomfortable and awkward. Which he is, about this conversation, but he's also full of popcorn and beer and they're in orbit and just finished watching _Fighter Pilot_ (only Sheppard could pick out a documentary that still involved that much engine noise) and he can't be bothered to change the subject. "And not _yet_."

"And you're sleeping with Elizabeth, but not dating her," Sheppard persists.

"Yeah, but that's, you know. I mean."

Sheppard makes a skeptical noise. "How long do you think you can keep this up?"

"Excuse me? I run Atlantis from a laptop, I can handle a little complication in my formerly nonexistent personal life. Besides, Elizabeth knows."

Sheppard raises an eyebrow. "Basically, you have a _mistress_."

"What? No! It's just an...extra facet of our professional and personal relationship. It's not any different from having lunch together."

"I don't know how you've been doing it, but -- "

Rodney rolls his eyes. "Spare me."

"What about Katie? Kinda unfair to her."

Rodney tips his head back. Yeah. What about Katie. Because he doesn't want to be alone in life, nobody does, and she's nice and almost as awkward about this as he is. Trying to make a go of it with Elizabeth...wow, how big a mistake would that be. But he still needs it, somehow, what he and Elizabeth have, and she won't disengage first. Not because of Katie, anyway. Katie's not a good enough reason for her to step back, and he tries not to think about the implications of that.

"Rodney McKay has a mistress. There's something really wrong about that sentence," Sheppard muses.

Rodney snickers. "Not as wrong as _Elizabeth Weir is my mistress_."

Sheppard, to his delight, starts laughing. It's a slow build -- it always is with Sheppard -- but the grin slides into a chuckle and then to a full-on open laugh.

"Oh, man," he says, wiping his eyes and lifting his feet off the console, starting to turn the Jumper homewards. "How the hell do we get into this kind of thing, McKay?"

"I never really saw it coming," Rodney says, which for some reason sets Sheppard off again.

***

The end of the Atlantean month is rosters time for the teams, when new members get rotated in or bitch-and-moaners get rotated out. They used to sit down in the mess to work it all out, because at least in the mess there's easily accessible food and comfortable chairs, but after a while word got around and a growing crowd of silent, watchful scientists and Marines would assemble nearby. Now they do it in McKay's quarters, because McKay has a coffee machine and no other use for his living room. Additionally, even the Marines won't gather outside McKay's quarters.

The teams are all modeled on Sheppard's, with adjustments. Two Marines and a commanding officer, a scientist or two, an Athosian to act as cultural interpreter. At first, anyway; there are fewer Athosians now that the long-stay veterans of Atlantis are adjusted to dealing with The Locals. The meeting requires the presence of Colonel Sheppard, Chief of Science Doctor McKay, Mission Commander Doctor Weir, and sometimes Athosian Ambassador Emmagen, if there are Athosians being reshuffled. The rest of the teams, the non-exploratory research ones, are looser and change as necessary under the watchful eyes of Sheppard and McKay. Sheppard calls them the Ad Hocs, and McKay calls them the Fine Whatever Go To The Stupid Planet Alreadys.

Tonight Teyla hasn't got any changes she wants to make so it's just Elizabeth and the boys, some of McKay's good coffee and something not unlike General Tso's Chicken that Sheppard weaseled out of the kitchen, except it's not chicken and the vegetables involved are not quite of Earth and the rice is...unusual. Sheppard eats it like he was raised on it.

She has watched the teams rotate over the years, watched as Sheppard, the driving force behind offworld exploration, has tightened his standards and streamlined his people into something amazing. Given that the man seems nearly incapable of forming normal human attachments, he certainly knows how to work other people -- he shifts someone here and slots someone else into place and things just work, effortlessly.

She leans back as he and McKay bicker a little about how many scientists are necessary for a given team, waiting for them to appeal to her for mediation or sort it out on their own so she can approve it. She sips her coffee, letting McKay's acidic sarcasm and Sheppard's lazy taunting wash over her. It's almost exactly like listening to two extremely intelligent teenagers arguing about which superhero is coolest.

(Which they have been known to do, on occasion, but they always get bogged down when circumstances force them to come to a consensus about the definition of "cool". Sheppard insists that cool must be embodied and not defined; McKay believes anything that exists can be quantified objectively. If Bohr and the Buddha were going to argue about comic books...)

McKay's palm is warm on her thigh under the table, and she looks up from her coffee to see the pair of them, heads together, speech softer. His thumb twitches along the muscle of her leg. They must be near to finishing; once they're done, Sheppard will leave and she'll stay for one more cup of coffee, and perhaps stay the night. McKay's already anticipating Sheppard's departure.

Sheppard tilts his head slightly, pointing to something on the tablet between them, and McKay nods. She wonders if they realise that, for each other, "personal space" no longer exists.

It occurs to her that Sheppard wants McKay, and potentially would want her if he allowed himself to think that way about his superiors. She remembers Jeannie asking, " _Him and Colonel Sheppard?_ "

She's a diplomat, she knows how people react. If she slid closer, invaded Sheppard's space, looked at Rodney in the right way, she could have them both, together, right here, tonight. Her crazier days are behind her but honestly, would it be so insane? She will never again be as close to anyone as she is to these two men. She can see in her head the way they would fit together, the way the equation Rodney used to talk about would close down into something complex and devastatingly pure, entirely non-linear, something they would never speak of outside of _them_.

But she cares about Sheppard, in a weird way he wouldn't ever be able to understand, and Sheppard cares for Rodney. And she isn't sure she should break in on whatever they have now, not like this. After all, Sheppard has respected what they have, too, never tried to change it or talk either of them out of it. If it all did collapse down there's no knowing, not with John, that the equation would even make sense.

"Well," Sheppard is saying, when she comes back to herself. "Not that the Military-Industrial Planning Committee isn't fun, but I have to go help Ronon beat up some leathernecks now. Doctor, Doctor," he says, giving them a short ironic bow.

"G'night, Sheppard," McKay calls, intent on something on his tablet.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do, kids," Sheppard calls back, and McKay looks up, startled, but the Colonel is already gone.

"There's not much on _that_ list," McKay mutters, and she laughs and leans over to see what he's working on, her hand resting on the broad warmth of his shoulder.

***

Except for that one time when he blew up a solar system, McKay's never really had any issues admitting he's wrong. It goes with the territory: as a scientist you will be wrong a lot of the time, and if you don't admit it your results will be faulty.

The problem is that he so rarely is wrong that it's always a little bit of a shock to his system.

"Listen, give it to me," John says, as McKay keeps turning and turning the rings, apparently certain that he's almost mastered it. The device itself is some kind of lockbox, with three nested rings that rotate and presumably form the combination. There are millions of possibles, but McKay has a Theory: the patterns of Ancient on each ring implicitly inform the user of the combination if the user is clever enough. A riddle and a combination lock. Irre-fucking-sistible. If John can ever get his _goddamn hands on it_.

"No," McKay answers, pulling it further away from John on the other side of the mess table. "I'm close."

"You're not close."

"I'm good with Rubik's Cubes," Zelenka pipes up.

"This is not a Rubik's Cube!"

"No, it's a rotary telephone," John says. "You'd think the Ancients would have discovered the wonders of touch-tone. We managed it."

"Is very beautiful, all concentric circles," Zelenka remarks, not nearly as annoyed that McKay is hogging the new toy. "It's hard to make circles in fabricated things, you know. Spheres, even more hard."

"And..." McKay clicks the smallest ring into place and lifts his hands in anticipation.

Nothing happens.

After about ten seconds of nothing happening, John narrows his eyes, offers McKay his sandwich, and grabs the lockbox when McKay automatically reaches for the food.

"You son of a -- " McKay tries to steal it back and John bats his hands away. "What are you going to do, try your old gym locker combination?"

"And that's less random?" John replies, both hands possessively protecting the box from McKay's futile grabs. "Come on, McKay, give me a shot. Bet I can get it open. Week's pay."

"I'm paid more than you."

"Week's pay and whatever's inside the box."

McKay flaps a hand, biting into the sandwich John sacrificed. "Whatever. It was boring anyway."

Sheppard studies the Ancient letters and numbers, cocks his head, and figures _what the hell_. He slides the rings around carefully.

The box whistles, low but loud enough for nearby diners to look up. Zelenka is staring, sandwich lifted halfway to his mouth, curious sharp eyes studying the machine over the rims of his glasses.

"How -- " McKay's voice rises sharply. "What did you do?"

John smiles at him. "My birthday."

" _What?_ " McKay looks at Zelenka. "Did you see that?"

"Very clever," Zelenka says, putting his sandwich down. "Very clever!"

"Personally keyed!" McKay says, snapping his fingers. "It only opens to what you'd set it to if you were -- oh, birthday? Seriously? _Do you use your birthday as a mainframe password?_ "

"Relax, I don't use my birthday. Here." He slams the lid shut and shoves it across the table. "Try yours."

McKay twists the rings, scowling, and the box whistles again and pops open.

"And because we would never try our own passwords -- " Zelenka continues.

"Yes yes yes," McKay waves a dismissive hand at him.

"Hey, I think someone owes me a week's pay," Sheppard says to the air.

***

When Rodney pitches his idea of sinking the city, Elizabeth can hear the desperation in his voice and she knows it is not a great plan, it is in fact a bad plan born of a set of bad options. Still, under attack from a giant space laser the Replicators have sent to destroy them, it's pretty much the only plan that anyone has put forth.

When Colonel Ellis gives him the order to go ahead with it, she can see what will happen: Rodney will pack up his computer, grab Zelenka, and get to work. Normally she wouldn't even notice, really, probably, if Ellis hadn't already tried to undermine her. If she wasn't oversensitized. She braces herself for the betrayal.

When Rodney immediately says to him, without knowing any of this, when he says with the utmost of condescention, " _Yeah_ , I don't think that's your call," she thinks for the first time that it would be quite possible to fall in love with Rodney McKay.

When she watches him ride the mix as John launches their city into the air, the goddamn air, into space, the pair working in concert and on her command, she feels every pulse of power and every push of engines and she thinks, _yes_.

And even when the fire and light break through, all the beautiful glass shattering inwards, she thinks, _yes, yesyesyes_ , and feels no pain as she dies.

***

Rodney remembers joking in bed once -- he thinks it was on Earth, yes, probably Earth -- that he would write Elizabeth a formula that would make their lives make sense. He often wants one. A formula that would factor in every part of them and always give the same results despite variables and fluctuations and new integrations.

He bends to the laptop and works faster, diving into Replicator code, talking himself through it or muttering a sequence because he'll need to know it later. The cuts on his face are small but deep, and he tries to ignore the pulsing burn as he types. If he can reprogram the nanites in Elizabeth's body she won't die, and she can't die, because he hasn't written her that formula yet and because she can't. They need her, he and Sheppard both.

She brought him to Atlantis, he remembers that, she picked _him_. There's never been anywhere he fit so well as he has on Atlantis, like he finally figured out that the reason Earth pretty much sucked was that he was born in the wrong galaxy.

It occurs to him as he debugs and compiles and rewrites and compiles again that he is writing that formula for her now. Every programmer leaves a piece of themselves in the code and he is writing himself into the nanites, so that if they rebuild her out of themselves it will be out of him too and _Sheppard doesn't understand_. He doesn't understand how clean and pure the code can be.

He knows even before Elizabeth's body begins to fail her that whether Sheppard gives the word or not he will do what he can for Elizabeth, everything he can. She can hate him later, he doesn't care, she'll be alive to hate him. Sheppard won't hate him, Sheppard is incapable of hating him, this he knows though he has never used it against him until now.

_Besides_ , the dry and half-amused little voice in the back of his head reminds him, _it's not like you've never been hated before_.

***

Elizabeth Weir has all but ceased to exist.

She moves and walks and talks, she reacts the way the subroutines tell her to, but deep inside her is the knowledge that something is irrevocably changed. Nobody else is real, and no emotion penetrates. She tells herself that this is perhaps some kind of psychological reaction, but other parts of her know better. She is part Replicator now, and that? That is...

Should be terrifying but isn't. Because fear ceases to exist. Even as her vocal cords modulate fear into her voice, no fear is in her heart. She would mourn, but she can't.

Only, when McKay patches into the Replicators and activates them inside her, finally, finally there is one feeling. Awe. This is what John and McKay feel, she thinks, this is how they see Atlantis. This is finally the last connection, the triad complete. The city below, a pale imitation of Atlantis, it hums to her. The code unfolds, all for her. The crystals sing.

She can feel McKay watching her with fear and longing, she can read the heat signature of John's body, flush with adrenaline, tightly controlled. Her body thrums to the sad little pulse of the laptop in McKay's hands, not enough, not nearly enough.

She dies for a second time, there on the planet, far from McKay's hands and John's guns. Protecting, yes, but also doing what she does best: commanding. Commanding her body not to betray her, commanding the Replicators to obey her, commanding John to leave her behind, commanding, commanding.

***

In their first days on Atlantis they were like children -- while the techs set up the labs and the Marines grunted and strained, moving everything into position, John and McKay dug their hands into the city and fucked around.

They were, after all, the nominal leaders, under Elizabeth but reporting only to her, McKay Of the Civilians, Sheppard Over (but not Of) the Marines. It wasn't that they didn't do their jobs, it was just that in their spare time, when others were poring over reports or sleeping exhaustedly, they had a whole new galaxy at their feet. They hardly slept; they wandered the halls, broke into the computers with McKay's tablet and John's gene, hacked the architecture itself like teenagers, because they _could_. They brought up systems, crashed 'em again trying to make them function, found others, made the city do tricks for them that it was never intended to do. They played Ancient games (and boy did that backfire) and popped panels and studied crystals and made the lights in the hallways flicker. Atlantis was theirs to take, but they treated her (more or less) like gentlemen. They loved her.

McKay knows now what it feels like to have the city kick against him when he's trying to push her past her limits, he knows what it feels like to hurt her in the course of saving her. McKay still carries pieces of her under his skin, a shard of glass lodged in his cheekbone, a few bits of metal in his thigh. John knows the despair when the city can't or won't respond to his commands, when she doesn't warm under his touch, and he has scars from where she has burned and bruised and cut him. They both of them count the cost of Atlantis in bodies and blood.

Atlantis belonged to them and they belonged to Elizabeth, and now Elizabeth is gone and they are tired, older than they were. They don't play anymore. The hallways are haunted with the dead and their beautiful glittering city is pocked with holes, aching under John's hands.

McKay saved Elizabeth and then lost her again, sacrificed for the city. It was McKay's plan from the start. Not that he planned it to happen as it did, but he got the city into space, he saved Elizabeth by reprogramming her, he put her where she would offer herself up to save them all. Perhaps she's still alive but John knows the odds are slim, and if he feels this yawning pit in his own gut, what must McKay feel?

Life in Atlantis was never simple or easy. But it used to be good, it used to be more than a mad scramble just to keep breathing. There was a time when they made the city live instead of using what they knew to pit two races against each other in the faint hope of mutual annihilation so that they themselves wouldn't be slaughtered. He once toasted Elizabeth for making peace; she died to start a holy war.

John turns his face up to the two visible moons of their new planet and lets the moonlight play on his skin until he's numb from the cold, until no part of him feels anything anymore.

***

_Today: Sucked._

_Today: Kinda sucked._

_Today: Pretty much sucked._

_Today: Sucked. But there were peanut-butter bars in the mess._

_Today: Teyla beat the shit out of me at sticks. Many very manly wounds. Ow._

Kate Heightmeyer follows John with her eyes whenever they happen across each other in the halls. He looks tired, and also as if he sleeps in his clothes these days. He nods curtly where he used to smile, greets everyone with a mild, disaffected expression. His arms, below his rolled sleeves, are covered in green-yellow bruises, and his knuckles are usually scraped and split from sparring.

She notes down in her head -- _clinical depression_. She's tried reaching out to him before, only to be rebuffed; perhaps if she spoke to Teyla about things, sort of dropped some hints.

Then he stops at the end of the corridor, waylaid by Rodney. She watches with interest as Rodney shows him something on a display screen, bats his hand away from it, jerks his head down the hall. They take off walking, briskly.

Maybe she should speak to Rodney about it instead.

But for now, just a little more watchfulness; John was close to Elizabeth (some people say she was seeing one of the senior staff, so who knows; they'd have been a striking couple) and it's possible he's just grieving.

After her death, her successor finds only one open note in John Sheppard's file: _Talk to Dr. McKay?_

He wonders why; sure they're close, those two, but who wouldn't be? Of the original mission's senior staff, they're the only ones left who haven't died.

***

"Do you realise," John says one morning over breakfast, "I'm officially the guy who's been on Atlantis the longest?"

"Only if you're still counting offworld activity as _on Atlantis_ ," McKay replies immediately, while the others at the table just give him strange looks. "Quantitatively speaking, in terms of actual days in residence, I probably beat you."

"It's not a contest, McKay," he says.

"And if we're not talking quantitatively, then you're ahead by _mere minutes_ , since I gated through right after you did," McKay continues.

"Do you want awards or something?" Ronon asks.

"It's not a contest!" John insists.

"Yeah, _I survived Atlantis and all I got was this stupid t-shirt_ ," Lorne grins. McKay suddenly looks away, smile fading. It's not fair to Lorne to make him feel like shit for reminding them who didn't survive, so John carefully grins.

"We could put _And everyone else is a punk on the back_ ," he says. Lorne cracks up.

"Way to ask for an asskicking, Colonel."

"Are you sure you're big enough to kick my ass? Must be at least this tall to take the Colonel down," John continues, holding his hand a few inches over Lorne's head.

"I'll pay him to do it," Lorne says, tipping his head at Ronon.

"I'd do it for free," Ronon says.

"Hey!" John feels insulted. Ronon shrugs. McKay is still not quite looking at anyone. "Nobody's kicking my ass. And you can't make those t-shirts, don't ask, because now I have a record to keep and if the IOA gets me kicked out of Atlantis, McKay wins."

"I thought it wasn't a contest," Ronon points out.

"No. It's not," John agrees. "It's a non-contest...that he would win."

"Forgive me, I have a record of not-dying _I'd_ like to keep," McKay says drily.

"Well we'll have to settle for a stalemate," John said. "In our non-contest. I won't get fired and he won't die and nobody's wearing any t-shirts."

"Besides," Lorne continues around a mouthful of food, "If the IOA reassigned you the Marines would riot."

"Really?" John asks, feeling pleased.

"Yup. Broken windows and everything."

"But not McKay's labs." John points a fork at him.

"Oh no, man, just the stuff that's already broken."

"Hey! If they're going to riot they should do it right," McKay points out. "You can riot in 3a and 22b. And 19b too, as long as you're quiet."

Lorne makes a great show of taking out an imaginary notebook and writing it down.

John's lived this conversation, or variants on it, several times in various combat zones; everyone at the table trying to be top at gallows-humour, because McKay probably is going to die in the field and if John doesn't die in the field he knows he can't command Atlantis forever and Lorne, Lorne will maybe die young and in the field. Many of the Marines will, certainly. And your options are to freak out about it or to turn it into something pointless and funny and casual.

McKay's never been really good at casual, but he looks less upset than he did a moment ago.

John taps McKay's shin with the toe of his boot, grinning when the other man glances at him. "Still winning."

"By minutes!"

***

"Hey, check this out," Sheppard says.

Nothing good ever comes of Sheppard saying that.

But before Rodney can answer, Sheppard has fired a drone from the Jumper, in high orbit around the planet. Before Rodney can ask what the hell he thinks he's doing, Sheppard has fired the new short-range energy-pulse cannon that Zelenka -- who shouldn't be allowed near weapons schematics anymore -- installed last week. At the drone.

The explosion is not in Rodney's top three (that would be the tac-nukes, the volcano, and the whole solar system thing) but it's definitely a close fourth. The shockwave lights their shields up like a flash-grenade.

"Holy crap," Rodney says, the afterimage of the explosion still burned on his retinas.

"Yup," Sheppard answers, insufferably smug.

"What kind of force do you think that was?" Rodney reaches for his tablet and begins inputting calculations.

"I was going more for 'big explosion pretty'," Sheppard replies.

"But -- "

"McKay."

"Listen, just a few -- "

"McKay, eye contact please."

Rodney looks up at him, and finds himself more than a little pinned by the intensity of John's stare. He really does have the thousand-yard thing down.

"Disengage your head for a minute," John says.

"I don't -- "

"McKay, disengage."

Rodney stops for breath, tries to get the equations out of his head, focuses on that stare.

"Now, was it, or was it not, an awesome explosion?"

It was, really. "Yeah."

"And."

"Yes?"

"Do you, or do you not, want to watch _Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure_?"

"I can't believe you like that film, the total lack of even pseudoscience -- "

"Rodney! Disengage! Switch it _off_ for a moment, okay?"

They are in space, in a spaceship, built by aliens who long ago died out, in a galaxy far from home. John Sheppard uses this spaceship, among other things, for awesome movie night.

And he has, Rodney notices, Junior Mints.

"Yes," he says.

"Okay then," John smiles, turning back to the screen, and props his feet on the console. Rodney leans back and thinks about things that aren't mathematical or physical, and lets the _utter stupidity_ of John Sheppard's taste in movies wash over him.

This is a true fact: Junior Mints taste better in spaceships.

***

They've never talked about what Rodney was willing to do for his sister, or John's ruthless refusal to let him. They've never talked about the fact that John Sheppard essentially killed a man for Jeannie. Or maybe for Rodney. John isn't sure himself.

They've been back in Atlantis for weeks, and they're not about to start talking about it now. Instead, there's this, movies and games and bickering, which is all he knows how to offer. And always a gaping hole between them where Elizabeth used to be.

John has never wanted to touch him so badly, and never known a less appropriate time to do so.

Then they finally have word that Elizabeth is dead and while this is even less appropriate, John can't fucking deal anymore.

***

Rodney doesn't understand what he's feeling, what he's thinking, until he's back in Atlantis after nearly being killed by the Replicators _yet again_.

There was a moment, when he saw Elizabeth Weir's face on the MALP camera feed, Elizabeth, standing whole and unharmed when they'd left her for dead on an alien planet. There was a moment where his body said yes and his fingers twitched with want, but only a moment. By the time they'd reached her, by the time he was figuring out how he could tell her everything, how much he'd missed her and how sorry he was, there were others there. His own double, talking fast and excited, finishing his words. As much as he had felt for Elizabeth, to have a mind that connected on his level was rare and to know that the mind was his _own_ was so actually mind- _blowing_ \--

And then she was gone again.

He knows for a fact that nobody knows about him and Elizabeth except for Sheppard. He's heard the rumours, though they've died down, that Elizabeth was in love with one of her Senior Staff. It's someone's wild conjecture, he supposes, and everyone assumes that if it's true it must have been Sheppard. Or, in the case of some of the lower-order of Marines who think fantasising about a dead woman's sex life is in any way appropriate, Teyla.

So when Radek turns to speak to him that night while they're working, in more silence than usual, he knows that Radek can't possibly understand.

"I know what you're trying to do," Radek says, which is stupid, because of course he knows what Rodney's doing, he's been working on the Replicator ship-locator with him all afternoo --

Oh.

He doesn't mean the technology.

"Yeah, what's that?" Rodney asks, trying to keep his voice level.

"Lose yourself in your work to avoid thinking about Elizabeth."

And it's not Radek being cruel, it really isn't, he can't know that Rodney misses her and still feels that want for her sometimes -- especially after the missions, after the adrenaline drains from his system, and they could have brought her back, they could have. He can't know that Rodney doesn't know why he was more fascinated with meeting himself than with seeing Elizabeth again, and what kind of person does that make him?

"You must realise it's only a temporary distraction," Radek adds.

"That's one of the perks of the job," he replies, voice tight and restrained. "Something terrible happens, you don't have time to dwell on it because you're too busy trying to stop the next...terrible thing from happening." And the confession falls out of his mouth anyway, because he didn't really ever learn how to repress this, he's not used to it. "Seriously, if it wasn't for the Replicators and their plan to wipe out every human in the galaxy, I'd be in pretty bad shape right now. No, this is Carson all over again and I'm just not ready to deal. Not yet."

"You're not the only one who misses him, Rodney," Radek adds. Thank Christ; he thinks this is about Carson, and it is in part, it's about how much they've lost in such a short amount of time. It's a little bit about how Rodney thinks if he stops moving, if he can't find some other way of dealing with all this, he will go _out of his fucking mind_.

"I don't suppose you want to talk about it."

Fuck, no, he doesn't want to talk about it. Except, what comes out of his mouth is "Eventually, but not now."

Radek leaves him to his work, which is at least something, and he's grateful. He goes back to work and doesn't think about Elizabeth's hands, where he kissed her palm and wrist, or Elizabeth's cheek under his.

John comes not long after -- maybe sent by Radek -- and he's grieving too. They are missing a part of themselves and only the two of them know how that part fit in, and neither knows how the other's did. They should be closer than they are, but they're alone in this shock. John perhaps more so, because John never really gave up.

Under his hands, even as John's leaving, the machine begins to work. A faint rush -- a small beep -- and they're bent over the screen watching as Replicator ships begin to appear on the screen.

First six, then eight, then fifteen, then more and more and more.

"Oh, crap," Rodney says. John's tense next to him, one hand gripping his shoulder tightly, breath shallow and loud. "Jesus, we're fucked."

"We have to start evacuating," John answers, eyes still on the screen. "Can you -- "

" -- I'll call Sam -- "

"Tell her, evacuation, I'm going to get -- "

" -- the Marines, yes, of course, but -- "

"-- I know, Lorne will know who, can you get the -- "

" -- it's on in the gateroom, I'll get science teams and -- "

" -- call everyone back from offworld now, your people can clear out the -- "

" -- we'll need more room than the mess, there's that hangar -- "

" -- and Jumpers, we can load them directly into -- "

" -- there's a planet nearby -- "

" -- got it," Sheppard says, shoving away from the desk and bolting down the hallway. Rodney's already calling Sam when the orders come over the loudspeaker.

"Attention all military personnel," Sheppard's voice. "Muster to the gateroom. All military personnel to the gateroom. Any able Jumper pilots to the bay."

_What the hell's going on?_ Sam's voice in his ear.

"The Replicators, check your screen," Rodney says, and hears her, _Oh my god. Sheppard --_   
'  
"He's handling it, but you need to know we're going to have a lot of offworlders coming through the gate."

_I'll secure the gateroom, do you boys know what you're doing?_

"No," he answers, and there's a hysterical bark of laughter. "We'll get there. Work with Sheppard, I have things to do." He ports over to the public address and comms on. "Attention all science personnel and civilians, we are expecting a mass evacuation into Atlantis. All able hands report to the mess. Staff heads to the gateroom. All science and civilian personnel to the mess, staff heads to the gateroom. Tell your friends, people, let's go."

The next few hours are a blur of hasty briefings and the Stargate constantly opening, first to send out teams of Marines, then Marines with scientists who know the people of the various planets, then to allow evacuees to begin pouring in. There are Marines in the mess, supervising the clearing of tables and the marking out of floors, and there are pilots in the Jumper bays loading people directly into Jumpers to get them safely cleared so that more can arrive. He is aware throughout that he and Sheppard are running the gateroom, shouting information and orders to and through and across each other.

At some point there is Sam's hand on his shoulder, Sam's voice in his ear telling him the new shift is coming on and we've got it, _Rodney, go get some sleep_. He looks up to see Sheppard already at the doorway, swaying slightly from exhaustion, and if Sheppard's going then everything must really be okay, and they must really be tired.

"I'll take him," John says, hand on the back of his neck again, pulling him away from the laptop. Zelenka, looking at least a little more well-rested, slides smoothly into his place. He gives, because sleep sounds so good, and walks with John's hand guiding him, through the door as the Stargate activates again.

The halls are dark and quiet here; everyone who isn't sleeping is working. He lets John move him along silently, focuses on the hand on his neck to keep from wondering if Zelenka can do this, if they're really as organised as Sam thinks they are. The pad of John's thumb shifts slightly under his ear, and John's other hand waves open the door to his quarters.

"Thank you," he says quietly, stepping inside, but John doesn't release him and he doesn't leave. Instead he swings around in front of him and Rodney can see how he's still breathing fast and loud. How on earth has he gotten enough air into that brain of his to --

John shoves him against the wall, so hard he almost loses his wind, and then there's a warm body pressed up tight against him and John's lips on his, John's hands on his ribcage holding him in place.

It's a dirty, heaving sort of kiss. John's desperate and frightened and he gets that, he really does. It's silent except for the gasps of breath they both draw and after a second Rodney raises his hands to hold John's head in place for better access.

"Oh my god," John mumbles, chest hitching, "Oh my god," and he's panicking, _John Sheppard_ is freaking out. Rodney slides one hand down to his throat to pin his mouth shut, thumb on jaw, and John makes a low desperate noise and bucks against him.

They're crashing from the night they've just spent and the triumph of a well-executed start to the evacuation. They're frightened because Jesus Christ, that's a lot of firepower, and because it's their fault, they did this, and because this is Elizabeth's last gift to them and it's equal parts incredible luck and a reminder of their own colossal fuck-up. John's body is wiry and brutal and his hands are going to leave bruises. Rodney kisses his jaw, sucks in a breath of air against his throat, lets John crack and break against him.

It's like that first desperate time with Elizabeth, he thinks, but different somehow. The air of desperation is certainly there but it's not for or about them, it's a leftover ebb from the last two days. It isn't _I need someone, oh, you?_ as much as it is _I need you, please_.

As suddenly as it started it's over, John stepping back, not much more than a shadow and the gleam of teeth in the dark. Rodney cautiously moves forward because he knows John isn't done and he's barely started, but then John surges back, kisses him one more time, whispers "You're a genius, Rodney," in his ear, and runs through the door that opens without even waiting for him to wave the command.

"Well, that was new," he breathes after a moment. He strips off his jacket, crashes onto the bed, and is asleep before the pain in his ribs has time to fade.

***

This? This they also don't talk about.

McKay locks himself up with a Wraith in his lab and John goes on kill-runs against the Replicators. Thirty-seven ships drops to thirty, but the Replicators are still out there. It's not that they're hiding from each other, it's just that, you know, there's a big fucking war going on.

And maybe that he's hiding a little, but he did molest McKay and then bolt. Plus McKay's got a girlfriend and also, hi there, a track record of sleeping with senior staff that he isn't emotionally attached to.

Suddenly, McKay's proposing to Katie.

Huh.

Maybe they should have talked or something.

***

"So I did not ask," Zelenka says, bent over his workstation. They're perched on stools, almost back-to-back, trying to debug Atlantis so it won't try to blow them up again. "Did she say yes?"

"Huh?" Rodney grunts, hip-deep in code.

"Yesterday, with the lockdown. You, Katie, alone in a romantic botany lab, end of the world approaching. Very appropriate, sets the mood," Zelenka continues, and Rodney winces. "She said yes, yes?"

"I think we kind of broke up," Rodney answers, because Katie's promise of a rain-check on lunch was okay but then she said goodbye, and that seemed pretty final. Behind him he can hear the thunk of Zelenka's head on the metal worktable.

"Rodney..."

"What? Tell your cousin I'm still going to pay for the ring."

"It is not the ring!"

"I don't see how it's your business anyway -- "

"Is not healthy," Zelenka answers. "Life is short and dangerous. We should try not to be alone. We should find happiness where we can in this place."

"Yeah, well, that wasn't happiness. Hysteria, maybe," Rodney says, thinking of John and _You're a genius, Rodney_.

"And now you will be hysterical here, which is not good for me because I am chained to you all the time and not good for the science department because you will yell and wave your hands a lot."

"And that's different from me normally how?"

"God save me!" Zelenka says, and mutters something foul in Czech which Rodney totally has a comeback for, except that the doors are hissing open and both of them look up sharply. Sheppard does a stutter-step backwards.

"Lasers down, kids," he says, and comes into the room again. "How's the coding -- hey, coffee!"

"It's not working," Rodney says, as Sheppard makes a beeline for the coffeepot in the corner of the lab. "The power outlets on that side are -- "

He stops, because Sheppard has touched the wall and put his other hand on the coffee machine and while it's an Earth coffee machine it's plugged into an Atlantean wall, and it rumbles on under his hands. Atlantis is a whore.

"I hate you so much," he says with feeling.

"You don't hate me."

"I do hate you."

"Well, I could tell it to just make one cup," Sheppard says, checking the basin and then stuffing a filter and some grounds into the basket.

"Colonel Sheppard," Zelenka says, "I do not think I have properly expressed my gratitude for -- "

"It's okay, Radek, you can have some," Sheppard grins over his shoulder. Coffee begins to drip down into the carafe. "Gotta keep the Hero of Atlantis happy -- "

"Yes yes, we're all very proud that Radek Zelenka is tiny from obvious childhood malnourishment," Rodney snaps. Something beeps on Zelenka's laptop and he cranes his neck to see.

"Ah. Power fluctuations," Zelenka murmurs.

"Yeah, someone's been rearranging the crystals. Probably from yesterday. I'll get on it," Rodney starts to slip off his stool, but Zelenka's already standing and gathering up his tablet.

"I will go," he says, as Sheppard pulls the carafe out, dumps a bare inch of coffee into a mug nearby, and passes it to him. He downs it in a gulp and looks grateful. "Should not take long!"

And there they are, alone in the lab and the silence except for the hissing of coffee being born.

"So," Sheppard says, circling to lean against Rodney's workstation, hands in his pockets. "Botanists are apparently huge gossips. Marines are too, but I knew that already."

Rodney rubs a hand over his face. "Did I dump her or did she dump me?"

"You dumped her."

"That's my Katie," Rodney murmurs. He can't blame her; that was a pretty asshole move, what he did.

"Never got to help you drown your sorrows," Sheppard says. "I have a secret stash of 312 if you're interested."

"What the hell is 312?"

"Microbrew."

Rodney gives him a look. They've had this discussion about American beer.

"Hey, it's good stuff."

"Yeah, well, I'm not sure I have the brain cells to spare for drinking American lighter fluid."

Seated on the work-stool he's not that much shorter than Sheppard, but the stool has no back and so when Sheppard leans down and kisses him, he can't back away. The best he can do is tilt his head up, but John's hands are cupping his neck and even if he leaned now, he wouldn't fall.

"This again?" he asks, when John leans back, hands still warm and steady on his neck.

"Yeah, as reactions go, that wasn't the one I was hoping for," John replies.

"I'm sorry, I just dumped my would-be fiancee in a fit of insanity that may actually have lasted a year and a half, what reaction would you like? Hey, wanna be my rebound?" Rodney asks, because he _can't ever fucking shut up_ , what the hell is up with that?

"How about, _John, that was nice, do it again_?" John suggests, and kisses him again before he can retort.

"What is -- what is wrong with you?" Rodney asks. John sighs.

"Again, I've had better -- "

"No, I mean, what is, is this a thing? Are we going to start doing this every time we nearly die? Because I've been there before and it's nice, don't get me wrong -- "

"Nice, huh?" John asks, and he's grinning.

" -- don't be an asshole. You gave me half a handjob weeks ago and told me I was a genius and then walked out, so what's up with that?"

"Get with the program, Rodney. I'm trying to seduce you, here, and Zelenka's not going to stay away forever."

"Se -- _are you out of your mind?_ " No, really, why can't he shut up? "When the hell did you start seducing me?"

John leans back, takes his hands away. Crosses his arms, hitches his hip on the desk again. "I'm sorry, was me following you around and bringing you shiny things and giving you my food not sufficient notice? Because I could have put up billboards but, you know, that seemed a little unsubtle."

"And I do subtlety so well," Rodney replies.

"Someone has to. I'm an officer of the United States Air Force -- "

"Bullshit! Bull _shit_!" Rodney shouts. "And also? _Bullshit!_ We're in another galaxy and oh by the way if committing _treason and mutiny_ to get the city back didn't get you court-martialed I don't think they're going to care where you put your dick in your spare time! Not that _you_ seem to either!"

"What the hell, Rodney? Are we going to get into who fucks inappropriate people? I'm not sure you can win that one."

"Seriously? You're going to throw Elizabeth in my face?" Rodney demands, and this is the kind of fight he can really dig into, this is way more normal than John kissing him in the lab. "The fact that she's _dead_ makes it very hard for me to point out that I wouldn't have been with her if I thought I had a snowball's chance in hell of being with _you_!"

"It's not my fault you couldn't take a hint if it fell on you!"

"You knew that about me when we met!"

"I can't _believe_ \-- "

"Well, try!" Rodney says, not breaking eye-contact.

"Listen, if you don't throw me out of this lab right now," John threatens, pointing at the door, "I am going to do something really regrettable."

"Fine!"

"Fine _what_?" John shouts, actually shouts. Wow.

"Go! Stay! Whatever! Fine!"

They stare at each other. The coffeemaker grumbles.

"Well?" Rodney demands.

John exhales. "Did you just say that if you thought you had a chance with me you wouldn't have been with Elizabeth?"

Rodney thinks back. "Yeah."

"And the shouting just now, that was us freaking out about this, right?" John's finger indicates him, them, the lab, the coffee in a circular motion. "Are we done freaking out now?"

"Um, I'm pretty good," Rodney says. "Are you good?"

"I'm good." John nods. "Just to be crystal clear, the fight's over?"

"Did I tell you the US government doesn't care where you put your dick?" Rodney asks, feeling small and stupid.

"It's very reassuring."

"Oh. That's good."

John moves slowly this time, apparently so Rodney has time to either run away or brace himself, and kisses the corner of his mouth. Rodney tilts his head and kisses back, muttering, "All right, much better," which is apparently the reaction John was looking for, because he licks into Rodney's mouth, warm and agile.

He leans back after a moment, lowers his head so he can look in Rodney's eyes.

"Okay," he says, one hand on Rodney's chest, the other somewhat disconcertingly on the outside of his thigh.

"So that's settled," Rodney says, and gently disengages, lifting his wrists and then threading his fingers through John's to sort of show that no, it's not that he objects, just, they're in the _lab_. After a second he lets go. "Now, get the hell out of here and let me work."

_"What?"_

"I'll see you at lunch, go on, go," he says, and John stands there looking stunned for once in his life. "What? I'm not going to blow you in the middle of the lab, and no, you can't blow me in the middle of the lab either. Go, do your stompy Air Force thing, get out, go."

"Well," John says, tilting his chin, straightening his shoulders. "I'm going to go to the firing range."

"Yes, do that," Rodney waves him off. "Hey!"

"What?"

"Bring me some of that coffee."

Their fingers touch when he hands over the mug, and John grins at him. Radek, returning as John leaves, edges around him with a smile.

"All repaired. People should not play with what they do not understand," Radek says.

"You have no idea," Rodney mumbles into his coffee.

Lunch that afternoon is strange, full of grins he isn't sure how to interpret (some of them his own) and light talk about Atlantis and John sharing his potato chips.

"They are not potato chips," Teyla says with some authority.

"Walks like a chip, talks like a chip, tastes like a chip," John replies, biting into one.

"They are made from the fried shavings of the Nisu tree. We negotiated for the tree-branches ourselves," Teyla insists.

"Yeah, but Nisu Chips doesn't have the same ring, you know?"

"But it is incorrect. What if, for example, someone could not eat Nisu shavings? I am certain you would not want a strange cook on some other world to call her dish Jarda, because she has always made it with Jarda fruits, when it is in fact lemon pie."

"But this isn't some other world, this is the mess. They always post what it is on the menu," John says, pointing to a chalk slate with a listing of the day's food. "It's just easier when we're talking to call them potato chips."

"Delicious, delicious potato chips," Rodney agrees, joining in the teasing.

"I am not certain if it is the people of Earth or merely immature men in general whom I do not understand," Teyla sighs.

John is just teaching her the varied connotations of the term "cultural imperialism" when Sam and Ronon join them. Elizabeth was never comfortable around Ronon, and Rodney can guess why; he might not be a shrewd judge of some social situations, but he'd known Elizabeth well. She made her way through the world by talking, by negotiating. He doubted very much that a woman unafraid of the Genii's guns and bombs would be unnerved by Ronon's imposing physical strength, but Ronon was a master of when to be silent, and the fact that he couldn't be negotiated with -- not by her -- was intimidating. Sam, who balances the cerebral and the physical better than Elizabeth, seems fond of Ronon in her own way.

Even as he's considering this he's noticed that John has leaned back, has stopped eating, and is flicking his eyes back and forth between Rodney and Sam, seated next to him. There's a slight chill in his smile, and Rodney wonders if it's new or if it's just that he never noticed it before. Nobody who doesn't know John would think twice about it, he supposes, but he can tell the difference between arms-length politeness and real friendship (only through three and a half years of study, mind you). It occurs to him that John is jealous of his regard -- okay, maybe, once, more than regard, but whatever, he's over it -- for Sam Carter.

He thinks about triangles that afternoon, about how he and John and Elizabeth all fit together to form one thing, even when they were fighting. They don't do that with Sam; she's new and he has a history with her, and both of those things make for an incomplete structure.

They belonged to Elizabeth, once. Elizabeth and the city. Sam they don't belong to; she's just someone who gives the orders.

***

John expects to find Rodney in his lab, or in the mess-hall eating an early dinner; he wants to find him and get him alone and do obscene things to him, because while he is a patient man it was only up to a point and only when vitally necessary.

In the end he does find Rodney alone.

He's sitting on a bench next to the railing on a balcony off one of the common-rooms in the Senior Staff quarters; he has his tablet with him, resting unused on one knee, and the look that says he's deep in thought. John clears his throat, trying not to startle him.

"Room for me?" he asks. Rodney nods without looking around, so John sits, leans forward, rests his arms on the railing. "Thought you'd be at dinner."

"I will, in a while."

John glances sidelong at him. Rodney isn't ever quiet and only rarely contemplative. This is weird.

"It feels like something's missing," Rodney says.

"Yeah, you're not talking."

"Ha very ha," he answers, chewing on his bottom lip. "There's this gap where Elizabeth used to be. I thought Sam would fill it, but she doesn't."

"Yeah, I noticed that."

"I don't really know how to fix it."

"Even with your big genius brain?" John leans back, looks at him. "It's not your job to fix everything in Atlantis."

"No, just everything mechanical. That's what I'm good at, mechanical, and this..." he gestures to them and then to the city as if that somehow explains anything. "Not mechanical."

"And you're asking me how to fix it? Have you met me?" John asks.

"I'm not asking you how to fix it. _You_ came looking for _me_."

John studies him and then rests a hand on his leg, carefully non-suggestive. Rodney still looks down at it, then up with an oddly hunted expression.

"So, we keep doing what we're doing," John says with a careless shrug, ignoring Rodney's denial that he wants John to make this somehow right. "We find a way to fill the gap ourselves, maybe. I don't know, McKay, things like that, you don't find them too often in life. We're still here, Atlantis is still here. That's got to be enough."

"I'm not sure I want it to be _enough_. I don't want -- " Rodney hesitates. "I don't want this to be what I had with Elizabeth. It should be more than that."

He gets the message after a minute, and it startles him; Rodney's usually all about snatching pleasure where he can get it on Atlantis, whether it's food or Elizabeth or movies in the Jumper. A distant part of him thinks that Rodney's appreciation for material pleasures is a good indication of things to come.

"Well, I've been..." he gropes for a good word, " _patient_ for a long time. I think you have, too."

"That's good, I think," Rodney agrees.

John isn't sure if he's being promised something or being dumped. It's hard enough to tell these things with ordinary people, and Rodney isn't ordinary by any imaginable definition of the word.

Then Rodney turns slightly and slides his hand up John's arm and kisses him, startling the hell out of John for about a tenth of a second before he returns the sentiment, as if they are ordinary people and this is something ordinary people do. It certainly isn't chaste, but it isn't passionate either; affectionate, maybe. As if they have all the time in the world.

Oh. So. Promise, then.

"Dinner," he says, when the kiss is done.

"Yeah, think so," Rodney replies.


	5. Chapter 5

There's always a lot of work to be done on Atlantis, even in-between bouts of _oh god we're all going to die_. It's hard to find time, or at any rate to find more time. They've always eaten together, after all, and the only thing different now is that Rodney's aware when John wishes they were eating alone. Also, sometimes the way John grins at him is so unsubtle it makes him want to shoot himself because how did he not notice this when John Sheppard is absurdly obvious when he wants somethi -- someone?

He worries that nothing is _happening_ , neither of them are doing anything, and then he sits back and readjusts himself mentally. They've always spent most of their waking hours together when one or both of them isn't fixing a crisis, after all. How much more time could they possibly get?

Until John suggests a night-flight in the Jumper, which means movies, except apparently in this case it means putting on a movie and then making out in the pilot's chair for most of it. Not because they've almost died or are celebrating something, but just because they can. It isn't even exactly intense -- kissing, and okay a little bit of thrusting and hands touching the surprisingly intimate skin of shoulders and chests, but John seems to be waiting and Rodney isn't sure he can make the first move because then maybe it would be what he had with Elizabeth.

Or worse, what he had with Katie, because Katie was nice but unimaginative about everything, up to and including sex.

So he hesitates, and John hesitates with him, and when they land John straightens his shirt and says, "Patient," to him, and he smiles and nods and if anyone was in the Jumper bay they would have no illusions about the way the Colonel and the Chief of Science are grinning at each other.

And then they blow up Midway space station.

True, it was to prevent the Wraith making it to Earth, and probably ( _probably_ ) Earth is okay. But they are not, because they just blew up Midway and now they're stuck in a Jumper until the Daedalus happens to find them.

Actually, _Kavanaugh_ just blew up Midway, but Rodney's trying not to think about that, because John locked himself in the cockpit alone, leaving Rodney to the tender mercies of the Idiots, and if he kills Kavanaugh now the body will start to smell before they're rescued.

"Rodney, don't say anything."

Rodney starts a little at the voice in his ear -- why he's still wearing his radio is anyone's guess, other than the fact that it's force of habit.

"This is a secure channel, so they can't hear me. Don't talk, don't make sly little coughing noises, just listen."

_You son of a bitch, you locked me up in here with Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh, Sheppard._

"I may be a little lacking in self-control, but I promise I wouldn't really have shot anyone except maybe myself. Sometimes a man needs his quiet, you know?"

_Oh, I know, you bastard, and you know how I know? Because I haven't HAD ANY._

"And I'm very sorry, but it had to be done. Now. I'm sure you're going crazy in there -- "

_YOU'RE FUCKING RIGHT I'M GOING CRAZY --_

" -- but I'm going a little crazy in here myself," Sheppard continues, and his voice drops a little. Oh. Okay. "So I'm gonna get you out of there, like I always haul your ass out of trouble, but it's gonna take some time."

_You always -- excuse me? I have saved your life at least as many times as you've saved mine._

"You're gonna wait until everyone back there is asleep, and then I want you to tap your radio twice. I'll hear the static. Think you can stay awake?"

_I'm sorry, were you unaware that sleep deprivation is a hobby of mine?_

"I'm not fucking around, Rodney, if you make a sound I will leave you out there until your brain dribbles out through your ears. You know what I have in here? I have spaghetti MREs."

_Oh god, I'm sorry I called you a bastard, John, I really am._

"Now," Sheppard continues, and it sounds like he's relaxing. "To help you stay awake, 'cause I'm guessing at least someone's falling asleep back there -- "

_Kavanaugh snores like a buzz-saw. And I didn't ever feel the need to learn that._

" -- I am going to read you a story. You ready, Rodney?"

_A...what?_

"Chapter nineteen." John clears his throat. "When he returned to Moscow Pierre was handed a letter from Marya Dmitrievna asking him to come and see her on a matter of great importance relating to Andrew Bolkonski and his betrothed."

Rodney huffs air into the mic. _Where the hell did you get War And Peace?_

"I gave up on the paper copy of War and Peace, I put it on a flashdrive. I keep it in my vest. I'm hoping to get one of those Kipling things going, you know, shot in a fatal kind of way but the book stops the bullet from piercing my skin. Only in this case it'll be a titanium flash drive. Sucks the romance out, but there you have it," John says, as if he heard him, and continues. "Pierre had been avoiding Natasha because it seemed to him that his feeling for her was stronger than a married man's should be for his friend's fiancee. Yet some fate constantly threw them together..."

Rodney hears enough in the next few hours to determine that this Pierre guy is a boring moron being led around by his dick before he realises that the others are asleep. He taps his radio twice, and after a second the doors hiss open.

Before he can even stand up he's being grabbed by his shirt and hauled inside, and the doors hiss shut again.

"My patience ran out," John says.

It's not suave or particularly graceful when John pins him against the console dividing pilot and co-pilot seats and shoves his tongue in his mouth, but Rodney can work with this, especially if it means he never has to hear about Pierre again.

***

John hasn't actually been reading _War and Peace_. He carries it around with him now because pilots are superstitious and it's kind of like a talisman. He wasn't kidding about the Kipling thing. You just never know.

Mostly these days he opens the book (or the file) to a random place and starts reading. He figures if he spends enough time doing that he'll get the overall gist of the book. And it makes for entertaining torment of anyone who's prisoner to his radio.

Rodney's hands slip down his arms for a moment until he finds purchase, knotting fingers in fabric, not actually able to move all that much. That's okay. John doesn't need for him to move, just keep his nice mouth open and let John do all the work. Because, one, he's tired of letting Rodney make the calls; two, they've just almost died and whatever else he might say, to judge by his scorecard this tends to make Rodney easy; three, he's spent the last few hours after he threw everyone out of the cockpit bored out of his mind and aware that on the other side of the door was all the entertainment he'd need until the Daedalus showed up.

_I've never even had sex in an airplane_ , he thinks (and with good reason, airplanes are serious business). _Now I'm going to fuck in space._

_Cool._

Rodney makes a little hitching noise and sidesteps, still kissing him as he backs toward the copilot's chair. Oh, good idea -- oh, bad idea, backing into furniture. He catches Rodney's arm, hauling him upright, his other hand twirling the chair effortlessly so that this time when Rodney falls down he'll just fall into the seat anyway.

He's not sure if Rodney's always this pushy when he's not startled out of his wits or if it's just the whole almost-dying-again thing, but it takes them a few seconds of close-quarters shoving and overbalancing for him to get Rodney where he wants him, in the chair, so that he can straddle him properly and get enough leverage to really control the kiss.

"You locked me out," Rodney says, although apparently he's not going to hold a grudge.

"Sorry," he says breathlessly, adjusting to the feeling of Rodney's hand in the small of his back, holding him steady. "I let you back in."

"I'd really like some reassurance that this isn't about us almost dying, because once again, been there -- "

"It's not about almost dying, Rodney," John says, pulling back to make eye contact. "I just decided not to be patient anymore."

Rodney gives him a narrow look, like he's perfectly aware John's ulterior motive for this is sex in a Puddlejumper, so John kisses him again and slides a hand down to his belt buckle, flicking it open (yes, he's good at getting bras off too, a multi-talented man). Rodney's head tips back and his eyes go wide and a little glassy.

There isn't much you can do with a chair and limited room to move, not to mention no change of clothes and the knowledge that the Daedalus crews will be cleaning this afterwards. Still, Rodney McKay is a genius and John Sheppard is nothing if not innovative. Especially with his mouth around Rodney's cock and one of Rodney's clever, clever hands in his hair, the other cupping his jaw. If he looks up he can see Rodney looking back at him, adam's apple bobbing as he swallows, breathing hard to keep from moaning and _that_ runs a shudder down his own spine, spiking with pleasure.

He fumbles his trousers open without looking because he wants to keep looking up since this is _actually happening_ and if this is what Elizabeth saw every time they were together, Jesus God, no wonder, it makes utter sense for anyone in their right mind to want to sleep with Rodney.

But he's not thinking about Elizabeth, not really, not while he has his hand down his pants and Rodney's almost choking as he tries not to make a sound loud enough to be heard through the door. Rodney's fingers twist in his hair and he's trying to push him back but, honestly, _that's_ just not going to happen.

"John -- " there would be a question mark if Rodney were that coherent but he's talking too fast, low-voiced, "John -- ohgodJohn -- "

Rodney is not going to forgive him for coming all over the floor of the Jumper, but Rodney looks a little too stupid from sex to care, chest moving slowly, fingers still stroking John's scalp.

"Well," John says, trying to be suave while doing up his pants, never an easy task. "That was -- "

"Was?" Rodney asks faintly, opening his eyes. "I didn't even get to -- "

John leans over the chair, kissed him again swiftly, and then collapses into the pilot's seat.

"Consider it blackmail for next time," he says, closing his eyes. "Hungry?"

He opens one eye to find Rodney looking at him as if he's seeing the face of God. Grinning, he tosses an MRE pack across the console.

They eat quietly, the smell of the chemical heating units and prefab military rations scrubbed away every few minutes by the air filters, working overtime because you're not really supposed to use those in an enclosed space. Rodney swaps him bread-and-cheese for crackers with peanut butter, eats the cocoa-powder drink mix straight from the envelope, and looks longingly at the little packet of instant coffee.

"Okay, I'm all right with you losing your patience," he remarks, and John nods, already half-asleep. He's just barely conscious enough to hear Rodney tap a command into the console, then the door slide open and shut again quickly. Well, that makes sense; two men alone in the front of a Jumper is a little suspicious, way more so than half a dozen in the back.

He rummages in his pockets for his fold-away headphones, fingers dull-nerved from fatigue, and then catches the cord on his radio. After a thoughtful second, he taps the comm.

"It's not about almost dying," he says, one last time, and then takes his radio off and puts his headphones on and sleeps.

***

The first thing they do when they're safely onboard the Daedalus is shower. Five minutes each, water lukewarm; it's at a premium in an enclosed community with limited resources. It's enough to rinse off the sweat and get almost all the shampoo out of John's hair before it shuts off; typical. He wrings water through his hair and wipes the suds on a towel, annoyed.

"Here's the thing," says a voice outside the shower cubicle, and John immediately reaches for the thigh-holstered gun that isn't there.

He peers out and finds McKay on one of the four bunks in the room, staring at the bunk above him.

"Where's the thing?" he asks, confused, wrapping the towel around his waist and grabbing another one for his still-slightly-sudsy hair.

"You know how I told you about building a nonfunctional atomic bomb in the sixth grade?"

John sighs and sits on the bunk, toweling his hair.

"The thing is, it wasn't that I built the A-bomb, even one that intentionally didn't work. It's just not that hard. The reason they actually came after me for it -- " and, in Rodney's aggrieved tone, John can see adolescent Mer McKay vibrating with rage as he tries to shout down a roomful of Americans with guns, " -- was because I built a _better_ A-bomb."

He stops towelling. "What?"

"I built a better bomb," Rodney says, but his grin isn't the wide triumphant one, it's the regretful one. "Lighter, more powerful, more focused. That's what got me in trouble."

"O-kay," John says slowly.

"I left out the part that makes this story relevant, didn't I."

"Kinda, yeah. Unless this is your way of threatening to bomb me if I snore tonight." John pulls a pair of underwear on under the towel, then tosses it aside and reaches for the clean clothing at the foot of the bunk opposite Rodney's.

"I was just thinking it's nice not to be the one who blew something up this time."

They lock eyes; they grin wide. " _Kavanaugh_."

"He's going to be so busted," Rodney says happily.

John wants to touch him -- has wanted to for a long time -- and now he can, except that they're in a four-bunk room on the Daedalus, which has no locking doors. So he lies back and rests a hand on his stomach instead and settles for next-best: baiting.

"It's not funny, really," he says, over Rodney's chuckles. "Midway's gone, and Kavanaugh's a good tech, you know, and he really believes in..."

He can't finish, especially with Rodney propped on one elbow, looking ready to verbally flay him. He points and covers his face and laughs.

"...best of intentions..." Rodney manages, around his own laughter.

"He'll grow out of it."

"Valuable training, years of experience with SGC -- "

"Didn't mean to blow up a space station!" John finishes, and they laugh until they're sick, until the Daedalus crewmates they're sharing the room with step inside and look at them like they're nuts. _Crazy Atlantis guys, they're all alike_.

He should feel more sympathy, he supposes; he knows what it's like to fuck up your career because of one wrong impulse. But Rodney's laughing and Earth is safe and they're alive. That's all that matters. Besides, blowing up Midway did stop a potential invasion, so they probably won't actually fire Kavanaugh outright.

As days go by onboad the Daedalus it never really stops, the sense that everyone views them as The Atlantis Guys. For the crew, Atlantis is just a place they have to go before they can go back to Earth. As much as John's throat tightens and his adrenaline pumps at the idea of Earth in danger, Atlantis is their home now, so for them they're going home.

Rodney putters with the Daedalus engineering crew and bickers unsuccessfully with Hermiod a lot of the time; John runs laps of the ship or dawdles around, just talking to people. He hasn't got much -- they made it out with their firearms and the clothes on their backs -- but he barters lessons on the shooting range (a ship with a shooting range and they can't get hot showers?) or the mystical arts of moonshine brewing (fruit juice, yeast, sugar, a two-litre jug, a surgical glove, and patience) for Sudoku books and other diversions. But most of their downtime is spent together, and naturally they turn to the best game, called When We Get Home.

At first they try to best each other with what they're going to do when they get home, but that only works for so long, because their ideas of leisure, shock of the century, are radically different.

"When we get home," Rodney says, around a mouthful of horrible mess-hall glop, "I'm going to take a really hot shower."

"Swimming," John answers, thinking of the saltwater lagoons with Atlantis cocooning him. "Swimming, then a hot shower."

"You can swim if you want, Colonel Bacterial Infection. Hot shower, and then hours and hours asleep with nobody else snoring in the room."

"Swimming, hot shower, hours of sleep, real food," John replies. "Athosian food. Those little gourd things."

"Hot shower, hours of sleep, and a muffin," Rodney's eyes glass over. "And then _cleaning the lab_."

"Swimming, hot shower, hours of sleep, real food, and that balcony on the east side of the tower. Sunbathing," John replies.

"Cancer!"

"Warm sun," John counters. "No fluorescent lighting."

"You are going to have so many melanomas. Hot shower, hours of sleep, a muffin, cleaning the lab, and then my DVD collection."

"Ooh, DVDs," John agrees.

"With beer."

John concedes defeat.

Two days away from Atlantis, they're sitting in the dark empty mess, late at night, their bodies still set to a twenty-eight hour day, and Rodney starts it up again.

"When I get home," he says, "I'm going to go get Teyla to give me some of those really good blankets she bought on that one planet, the one with the short people, and I'm going to crawl under all of them and listen to the Goldberg Variations until I fall asleep."

"Blankets, Goldberg Variations, and a Twix bar," John volleys back. "I have a stash."

"Blankets, Goldberg Variations, a Twix bar, and totally naked," Rodney says. "Because there will be absolutely no Daedalus crewmen in my room."

"Blankets, Goldberg Variations, a Twix bar, totally naked, with the windows open."

It's a clever move; there aren't many places you can go from being holed up in bed with music and chocolate.

"Blankets, Goldberg Variations, totally naked, windows open, in the middle of the day."

A palpable hit, except he forgot the Twix bar, so technically a default.

"Blankets, Goldberg Variations, totally naked, windows open, in the middle of the day, with my comm turned off."

Rodney narrows his eyes, and John is suddenly very nervous.

"Blankets," he says, touching his left index finger with his thumb. John watches, swallowing, as he slides the pad of his thumb down his finger a little before shifting to the next one. "Totally naked."

Two defaults!

"Windows open," ring finger, "In the middle of the day," little finger, "comm turned off," right thumb held up, "because I'm in _your bed_."

John chokes. Rodney looks triumphant, and really, he's defaulted like five times now, so he is not about to let Rodney win this.

"In my bed _with me_ ," he returns the serve, and Rodney backhands it.

"In your bed, with you, sucking right...there," and his eyes flick down to just below John's shoulder, where the tendon of his throat meets his clavicle.

John tries not to grip the table or lean in because they are, after all, in a reasonably public place.

"In my bed with me sucking right here," he says, pretending to idly scratch the spot, words coming out in a rush, "while I jerk you off."

Rodney exhales with a huff, the end of the breath catching in his chest, and John feels victory on the horizon.

"In your bed with you sucking right there while you jerk me off because you've already come," he answers.

John licks his lips, but that's it; his mind is blank except for that image, and he can't _breathe_ , and Rodney's eyes light with triumph.

Rodney always fucking wins this game, it's really just not even fair.

"Goodnight, Colonel," he says, and saunters away from the table. John has to take a handful of deep breaths and think about how cold and annoying his little bunk in the crew quarters is before he can stand.

***

What actually happens is this:

They disembark and Radek needs Rodney _now now now_ for some emergency in the lab, and Lorne has umpteen thousand reports for John and drags him off to his office. When he finally manages to make a break for it while Lorne is fetching still more reports, John bolts for the pier, transports as far as he can towards the end of it, strips off his clothes and dives into the cool, salty water in one of the artificial lagoons. He spends an hour half-swimming, half-floating, before he dresses damply and slinks back to his quarters. He strips again and falls on his bed, still salty from the water, and spirals down into sleep effortlessly.

He wakes, only briefly, to the sound of his door opening and a solid whump on his bed as Rodney collapses, half-on-top of him, and something soft and woolly covers his shoulders. One of Teyla's good blankets, he thinks. And Rodney really can't mind the ocean water too much, because he nuzzles his head close to John's throat and licks the spot where tendon meets clavicle.

"Mfrr?" John asks intelligently.

"I had a muffin," Rodney replies, apparently interpreting it _as have you eaten yet?_

John falls asleep again to the feel of warm breath on his skin.

***

Snapshot:

The sun is shining through the open window, salt air warm and heavy in the room. A rumpled blanket on the floor next to the bed, its warmth not necessary any longer, the topsheet kicked aside next to it. Light gilds everything, the way sunset sometimes does, adding orange and gold hints to each surface and plane. Not only the clothing and the blankets on the floor, but the slow-moving bodies on the bed, gold highlighting a dark and messy head of hair fitted comfortably against a shoulder, lips busy with the delicate skin behind the ear.

They move deliberately, entirely unhurried for all their earlier talk of impatience and desperation; kisses along skin, lazy hands guided by half-asleep brains, soft breathing. Later there may be panic and fear but they can face that then; now there is only the brush of skin against skin and the slow roll of hips together, the taste of salt on skin.

"I'm going to catch so many diseases, you should have showered," Rodney says against his throat, and John bursts out laughing and gasps and comes.

It isn't comfort for the sake of comfort. It's much more than that.

***

John finds, to his surprise, that he has thoughts while he's in stasis.

He drifts, ideas crossing his mind with glacial slowness. He spends a handful of years surprised that he is capable of conscious thought, and half a century wondering what Elizabeth thought about while she was in stasis. The other Elizabeth.

But across the years he naturally circles around the stories Rodney -- hologram Rodney -- has told him. The mass of time is spent in horror at what he's heard about the way his friends, his _family_ , have died. None of them without purpose, none of them without taking some of those bastards along for the ride, but dead nonetheless. All but Rodney. Which is _more_ horrifying in a way, that Rodney lived but gave up his life, gave up his passion, gave up _Pegasus_.

Even so, Rodney had a handful of years with Keller and it sounds like they were good years; he had three good ones with Elizabeth too, whatever they were to each other, John hasn't inquired too closely. And -- well, they've been friends for four years, that has to count for something against the bare handful of months they've had anything more.

_\-- clever hands on his hips, clever mouth on his skin, the bump of each vertebra under his fingers, relived over decades --_

And there will be more of the more, because he's not going to let all this happen. He's going home; he's going to save Teyla; Jennifer Keller's going to have to find someone else to die miserably on -- except he won't let that happen either because even though hot jealousy fired through him at the mention of Rodney and Keller, she's still one of his and he doesn't let his people go down without a fight.

He's going to save the galaxy, because that's his goddamn _job_.

When he comes bolting out of the Stargate, back into his own gateroom, the first thing he feels is cool relief, oh god, the air is clean and cold and _so good_. He hadn't realised how hazy his thoughts had been, reactions sluggish, skin prickling and crawling from the heat.

Rodney is there, too, handsome and _young_ , hand refreshingly cold on his arm as he drags him to the infirmary under guard. His hair sticks up straight from his head like a hedgehog and his skin is clear and smooth and John wants to touch him and also to tell him he doesn't care that he's going to get old and jowly and bushy-eyebrowed as long as he doesn't end up some sad community-college professor with a weird obsession in a grubby studio apartment somewhere.

But there's no time, and he's been told he can get kind of intense about these things. So when Rodney pointedly doesn't ask anything except, "Do I still have my hair?" he defaults to next-best again, and teases him.

"No," he says.

***

Next best is for losers and suckers who can't man up enough to take the risk and say the words.

"Whoa! Jackpot!" McKay's voice over the comm was reassuring as they explored the horror museum of a nursery Michael has built. But, well, Rodney gets excited about a lot of things.

"What've you got?" he'd asked.

"I've got everything! I've got Gate addresses, I've got sub-space communication goes, I've even got his research into the hybrids! He's history!"

John had opened his mouth to say something like _Find out where Teyla is_ or _Take your sweet time and narrate it, McKay, I've got all fucking day_ but then he'd heard him again, chanting.

"No, no nononono, what happened?"

"What’s that?" Lorne's voice audible over the open comm.

"Oh no," Rodney had said, and it hadn't been "Oh no, I dropped the scanner" or "Oh no, my math is wrong" but "Oh no, we're all going to die."

"Doc?" Lorne, distant and tinny.

"It's a countdown," Rodney had announced right as the building started to shake, and then Lorne had been loud and clear in his ear.

"Colonel, it's a booby trap! We've gotta get out of here, now!"

And then the world had fallen in.

Next best is for people who forget that the best thing in the world can die.

John thinks this to himself as he builds tunnels through the rubble, all those stress-equation and mechanical engineering problems on his college exams finally proving their worth. _Hey kids, mathematics has real-life applications!_ His ribs hurt and he's pretty sure his leg is bleeding, but he can still get traction to push with his toes.

He also thinks about California as he crawls, about the earthquake. He was there for two of them, actually; he was at Stanford in '89 when Loma Prieta crashed the Bay Bridge Series and his AFROTC class mustered to help prep National Guard and organise the suddenly-homeless. He remembers that one more clearly; in '94 when Northridge hit he was already flying, and he only ever saw the damage from the air and the tarmac as he helped transport support staff and firefighters in from out of state.

The wrecked rubble of the Cypress Viaduct, all they showed on TV for like two weeks in 1989, isn't something he's forgotten.

A collapsed structure forms two levels; on top there's just chunk after chunk of debris, but underneath there are crawlspaces and even whole chambers, made by beams and columns falling just-so. There's enough room to maneuver.

"Lorne?" he tries again, every five minutes. "Ronon? Blankenship? Smith? Chavez? Kells?" and then, last because he really really really wants Rodney to answer this time, "McKay?"

"Chavez here, sir," says a voice, but it's not over his radio; John pulls it out of his ear and finds wires everywhere. Fifth radio in three months, dammit.

"Chavez! You can hear me?"

"Yessir! I've got Major Lorne. He's bleeding kinda bad."

"Can you do anything?"

"Doing it, sir."

"You seen the others?"

"They -- " there's a grunt and a creaking noise.

"Chavez, you wounded?"

"Big pylon on me, sir. I'm okay. Talking's hard. Thought I saw the rest of 'em get out."

"With Dr. McKay?"

There's a long silence.

"Nosir. I can see Dr. McKay from here. I can't get to him. He's not answering me."

John closes his eyes. "Is he closer than my voice or further away?"

"I think..." a pause. "I think he's between us, sir."

"Rodney," John calls. "Wake up, buddy, we got things to do."

He props another chunk of stone up against the roof of his makeshift tunnel and inches forward again, grabbing a thick metal bar and pulling himself along where a larger piece is too big to be propped and too low to actually hands-and-knees crawl under.

"Chavez, you still with me?"

"Yessir!"

"Stay with Lorne, I'll get to McKay."

Inch by torturous inch, propping the whole way so that nothing more caves in, he wriggles through the rubble until he hears a grunt and a crash.

"CHAVEZ?"

"Wasn't me sir!"

"MCKAY?"

There's an answering groan, and then a bark of hysterical laughter, close, close, just on the other side of one last pile of stones.

"Hey John," Rodney's voice, oh god. "Didn't I see this on _Torchwood_?"

Chavez laughs maniacally as well. "That you, Dr. McKay?"

"Who's that?"

"McKay, can you see Chavez?" John calls. There's silence.

"Yeah, I think so."

"You hurt?"

"No, magically the _exploding building_ failed to impale me -- no! I'm not impaled! Just...very uncomfortable."

John begins shifting rocks, hears them shifting from the other side as well.

"Gonna get to you, Colonel -- "

"No, I'm fine, I'll get there. Get to Chavez, Lorne's hurt."

"Right! Right."

When light finally opens in front of him and he crawls through into a miraculously open space, he can see a smear of blood on the ground, leading away. He follows it, no doubt leaving his own blood behind as well, until he can see huddled figures through the dust. Chavez, sitting up, something horribly large on his legs; Lorne, draped unconscious over something large and lumpy; Rodney, hunched over Lorne, white bandages glinting in his hands.

"Where's he hurt?" he rasps, and McKay's face turns to him, relief etched all over it.

"Head wound," he says tightly. "I think he'll live."

"M'kay." John levers himself up and crouch-walks across to a huge metal structure like an oblong cage, blocking access. Rodney must have wriggled underneath it, but even as he approaches it teeters and crashes and there's a rain of sharp pointy things. John tucks himself into a ball, hands on the back of his neck, and waits for it to end.

When he looks up again, the bars are firmly wedged in place with no more room for going under or over. His people are on the other side.

"Chavez? McKay?"

Rodney's voice is oddly subdued. "Chavez is dead, I think."

"Christ. You okay?"

"I think so." Rodney's face appears through the metal bars. "You?"

"Dandy," John mutters. "Listen, he said the others probably got out, so someone's gonna come for us, okay?"

Rodney doesn't believe a word of it, but then Rodney's good at worst-case scenarios.

"Just...stay put and try not to move anything." He winces, pulling his injured leg up against his body, lying down on the remains of the floor. It's cool under his cheek.

Rodney eases himself down to John's level, and they stare at each other in the spare inches between metal and floor.

"Lorne's as stable as he'll get," Rodney says. John concentrates on breathing. "Seriously, are you okay?"

"I'm _fine_ , Rodney," he tries to sound annoyed and almost succeeds. Rodney seems to appreciate the effort; he smiles, crookedly, and John watches as he brings his arm up, walking his fingers along the ground, reaching out. His hand is covered in blood and there are raw, angry scrapes on his knuckles.

John slides his arm along and inches his hand forward and manages to grab onto Rodney's fingers. His own fingers are covered in nicks and bruises.

"It'll be a very dramatic image if we die like this," Rodney says, and John presses his forehead to the ground.

He almost says, _Way to think positive, McKay_ and he almost says _So glad you think I'd make a dramatic corpse_ but, well, next best is for losers who can't man up.

"See the thing is," he says instead, "it really isn't about almost dying, and also I think I'm kind of in love with you."

Rodney's expression doesn't change.

"About time you figured that out, asshole," he replies. "Jesus, did you think we were fucking because you couldn't get a date?"

He's so shocked he doesn't immediately catch on. "Who the hell told you I couldn't get a date?"

"I don't know if you've noticed, but since we moved to this galaxy I've gotten way more tail than you. Stands to reason."

John starts to laugh, dust blowing every which way, and Rodney's fingers tighten around his palm.

"Man up, McKay," he says. "I just poured my heart out here."

Rodney rolls his eyes. "You're not going to die, I'm not going to die, I love you too, and now let's never ever speak of this again."

"Okay."

Rodney's thumb rubs soothing circles on the heel of his hand, and John shuts his eyes. His leg really really hurts.

"Oh and also you owe me until the end of time for disappearing for two weeks and freaking me out. Gifts of food, open adulation, and sexual favours graciously accepted."

John begins to laugh, and that's the moment where more light pours in and Sam Carter's standing over them like she's caught them writing naughty limericks on the bathroom walls, shouting _they're over here_ and _are you okay_ and _somebody get Dr. Keller_.

Lying on the floor half-buried in rubble, injured and with his second-in-command bleeding on the Chief of Science (his boyfriend, oh god, please let him not fuck this up) and the head of the mission swearing as she unburies him, John slips down into unconsciousness.

When he wakes in the infirmary, he's still holding Rodney's hand, and over the conked-out head of Rodney McKay on the edge of his bed he sees Teyla Emmagen, sitting in another bed, holding a baby.

"We won?" he asks, bewildered. She smiles at him.

"You caused Michael some consternation and delay with your explosion," she says.

"It wasn't our -- "

"And that is when I killed him."

He's never been so grateful for her ability to strip facts to their baldest, most basic components, but he can't quite get over it. "Wait, we _won_? And I _missed it_?"

"We won," she answers, and her eyes drift down to Rodney before one elegant eyebrow arches slyly.

"Awesome," John says, and then looks at Rodney and repeats, " _Awesome_."

Atlantis and all her people belong to John Sheppard and Rodney McKay, and they hold it in trust for everyone from Elizabeth Weir, dead this year and more, to little whatever-his-name-is Emmagen, alive only a handful of hours.

It's good and complete.

"Awesome," he mumbles, and strokes Rodney's stupid hedgehog hair once before he falls asleep.

_Old Euclid drew a circle_  
 _On a sand-beach long ago._  
 _He bounded and enclosed it_  
 _With angles thus and so._  
 _His set of solemn greybeards_  
 _Nodded and argued much_  
 _Of arc and of circumference,_  
 _Diameter and such._  
 _A silent child stood by them_  
 _From morning until noon_  
 _Because they drew such charming_  
 _Round pictures of the moon._  
– Vachel Lindsay


	6. Story Notes

_She would have loved you, loving me._  
 _She had a voice as fine --_  
 _I love you more for such a kiss,_  
 _And here is mine, is mine._  
\-- Mark Van Doren

I can pinpoint when I started shipping Weir/McKay. It was "Before I Sleep" in the second half of the first season; the way McKay interacted both with the older Elizabeth and the younger seemed strikingly affectionate to me, and his civility towards Weir came into sharp focus. He does treat her differently in the first three seasons than almost everyone else -- more respectful, more inclined to target someone else as the cause of Weir's hesitation to support him, rather than target Weir herself. It's clear in a number of episodes -- Tao of Rodney perhaps best -- that they have a unique relationship, whether you think it's sexual or otherwise. He _wrote her a book_ , people.

I don't _like_ Elizabeth Weir as a character, but she's tiny and pretty and obviously exerts some influence over him. Besides, it would fuck Sheppard up _so much_ , which is always a good reason for doing anything. I know that Sheppard/McKay practically punches you in the face when you watch the show, and yet I feel like it would be entirely IC for McKay and Weir would have dirty secretive sex because she misses her boyfriend and, well, in McKay's case, it's sex, who would say no? I'm not sure how well I conveyed their relationship, but I wanted it to be about Weir finding comfort, because she's the Leader and she needs a place where she doesn't have to be.

But of course the Sheppard/McKay does punch one in the face. As I began to develop the idea that Weir and Sheppard work in tandem to manage McKay, that they're a triad, it seemed natural that with Weir dead the boys would pull together and because of Weir's death they would form something more.

When I started work on the story I was going to structure it with occasional interludes between Heightmeyer and McKay, but then I forgot and honestly they weren't that enlightening to begin with. The only one that remains in the story was converted into a conversation between McKay and Zelenka, because I can't resist having someone ask McKay what he did in his downtime and then opening a new scene with him remarking that he's just taken part in a revenge fuck.

These are the other two:

***

_McKay tries to come to terms with having a one-night stand with Weir:_

"So, is it, should I talk to you about sex?"

"You can talk to me about whatever you want, Rodney."

"No, I mean, clearly this process has some kind of goal -- "

"You're thinking like a scientist."

"I AM a scientist. And besides, why am I doing it if there's no goal?"

"What do you see as the goal of therapy, Rodney?"

"I don't know. Not being a total neurotic, that would be sort of cool."

"I could set goals for you, but I don't think that's what you want. I think you need to set your own. So let's work on that, and if you want we can talk about sex, too. Okay?"

"It's just, I had some, and I'm worried that I'm not more fucked up about it."

"Because of the kind of sex, or because you had sex?"

"I just...I don't know what's normal very often, and don't tell me normal is an artificial construct, I figured that one out for myself, but there are ways people generally act around each other and since I spend most of my time with numbers I don't really know what that is very well. So what I want to know is, people who -- have sex, in a situation where you're not emotionally attached, when it's sort of, of blowing off steam, is it okay not to be fucked up about that?"

"Rodney, you're a smart man and you're very self-aware when you want to be. I'm going to ask you to try not to be worried when you find yourself not emotionally traumatised by something. If you really have examined your feelings, and you find that you're okay with something, give yourself permission to be okay with it."

"What I want is for other people to be okay with it."

"You're seeking reassurance?"

"Desperately."

***

_Post Trinity:_

"Do you want to talk about what happened a few days ago?"

"What -- you know?"

"Dr. Weir shouts loudly. And I get the mission reports, suitably censored. Enough to know what went on."

"Oh. Well. I destroyed a couple of planets. Uninhabited."

"Something to be glad of?"

"Grateful for, I think."

"That makes it sound like someone did it on purpose."

"Maybe someone did. I don't know. I mean, I'm not big on God or anything, but you have to have a certain amount of...philosophy, to be a physicist. You're rummaging around in the universe, you start to think you see signs of the universe rummaging back."

"Like what?"

"Six uninhabited planets in the direct path of the shockwave, for one."

"Do you think you're processing it at all?"

"Yeah, I -- had a bad night, but I'm getting perspective."

"How are you doing that?"

"I sat and obsessively watched it happen over and over for a while."

"That doesn't sound like processing, Rodney."

"And I talked with someone about it. Already, I mean. Not that you're not...trained for this and everything, but..."

"It's good you have someone to talk to about it. Can I ask who?"

"I'd -- really rather not."

"Nothing you say leaves this room, you know that."

"Yeah, but this room's kind of...big. And you're in it."

"H'm. But this person you talked to, you feel you can go to them?"

"I didn't. Well, I didn't know. But, yeah. Now, I do. I have -- people I can depend on. Someone who'll talk to me about that stuff."

"That's good."

"Yeah, I think so."

***

_This is not a therapy scene, it was supposed to be McKay and Weir talking about some misfortune that befell him, I don't recall what anymore._

"Who else on Atlantis would this ever happen to? Did I kick this place's puppy or something? It's always me."

"Well, sometimes it's Sheppard," she offers, grinning at him.

"You are not funny," he replies. "And also deeply lacking in sympathy, empathy, and comfort."

"Nobody likes him better than they like you," she sighs.

"I'm pretty sure that's not true."

***

_Just never quite found a good place to put this one._

It's not that his parents hated him, it's just that his Dad was really proud of their Welsh heritage.

Elizabeth's the only one who ever got it right on the first try: Me _re_ dith, with a little roll on the R. She didn't say it often, but once or twice, and he liked the way it sounded in her mouth.

If he knew then what he knows now, he wouldn't have bothered the patience-trying two-week process of renaming himself at college, not answering when people called him Meredith, having a word with the professors in the smaller classes before they said his name for the first time.

They would have said _Mer_ edith, and he would have said no, it's Me _re_ dith, it's Welsh, you ignorant asshole. And it would have been pretty cool and made him unique in ways his giant brain obviously never would.

Nobody says Me _re_ dith now, not even Jeannie.

" _Mer_ -edith," John calls sing-song into his earpiece, and he's taunting him because nothing makes McKay work faster than taunting. "They're going to start eating the peasants soon."

Rodney hates this planet. Grim, dour peasants and Wraith. "It's Me _re_ dith, you ignorant asshole," he snarls back, hands still working the crystals. _Come on, sing for Rodney, kids_. "It's Welsh."

" _Well_. Twll dîn pob Sais," he says, and Rodney chokes.

"What's that mean?" Ronon's voice on the radio.

"Yes, Me _re_ dith, what's that mean?" Sheppard echoes.

Rodney ignores him, slots the last crystal into place, and watches the room around him light up. "We're hot. Push the button, Frank."

There's a gratifying explosion in the distance as the planet's defence-drones come online and begin strafing Wraith darts.

"Freaks," Ronon grunts.

"Assholes to Englishmen," Rodney answers. "Old tribal battle cry."

"I like it," Ronon says, as Rodney straps the tablet to his pack and runs through the halls to where John's sitting in a control chair, looking blissed-out and comfortable. A huge fireball falls out of the sky nearby, and John jerks forward. The chair swivels, releasing him.

Mathematics and music and linguistics are all tied up in similar brain processes, which is why Rodney is as brilliant an applied Physicist as he was a technical pianist and why he can speak a lot of Russian, enough Spanish to get by in southern California, a sprinkling of Ancient, and both Greek and Latin more or less fluently. Well, Greek was the language of logic and the Romans were interestingly pragmatic, the kind of people Rodney could probably get along with.

"Googled a phrasebook, huh?" he asks John, as they made their way down the tower to see if anything was salvageable from the wreckage.

"Ab imo pectore, a bene placite," John says.  
(attributed to Augustus Caesar, lit. _from the bottom of the chest_ , from the heart.)

"Ad fundum," Rodney replies, and it's John's turn to be startled. "What? Latin's a derivative of Ancient."  
(Ad fundum, said at the end of a toast, "Hear Hear!" lit. _To the bottom_.)

It occurs to him a split second later that maybe John said it in Latin for a reason.

_Well_ , he thinks. _Alea iacta est_.  
(Alea iacta est, lit. _The die is cast_ , it has been decided, it is fated. When gambling-man Gaius Julius Caesar was forced to decide whether to cross the river Rubicon, effectively declaring civil war on his homeland and creating the seeds of the Roman Empire, he rolled the dice.)


End file.
